Last summer we moved across a state from Ms. S’s school location to her hometown and my place of employment. She brought the furniture, I brought the mojo, and together we filled in the blanks. About that time we were watching ‘Mad Men’ (the first time for me, the second or third for her), and so in honor of Pete, we got a Chip-n-Dip.
We just love hearing Pete say it: “A Chip-n-Dip!”
And Ms. S. also found us a festive quesadilla maker.
Part the First
For some time we enjoyed quesadillas. They were quick and easy. They were tasty. They are endlessly flexible, and while I love to cook and am willing to put hours, not always strung together as a whole, into a dish, sometimes I want to have it *right now*, and Ms. S. almost always feels this way.
Plug in. It’s a non-stick surface. Put down one big flour tortilla, layer it with cheese, perhaps some salsa, a bit more cheese, and the other tortilla. Some leftover grilled chicken goes well, as do roasted or fresh vegetables, thinly sliced and so on. The quesadilla maker has ridges; it aids you in subdividing your round creation into six finger-food-wedges.
What’s not to like?
Part the Second
Quesadillas are a guilty pleasure. Definitely a pleasure, and they should not be guilty, but they are.
Consider the flour tortilla. When you go to Qdoba, Chipotle, Moe’s or any similar burrito joint you wisely look up their menu online before going and contemplate the options, and if you’re watching your budget you pick the vegetarian burrito. If you’re watching your waist you take it naked: you notice that the tortilla accounts for upwards of 300 calories!
On its own that would be about three ounces (~85g) of white flour, but a flour tortilla, delicious as it is, is getting a lot of its calories not from the flour but from the added fat, which makes it both supple and delicious. Of course, then you’re a bit conflicted, as isn’t a “naked burrito” just a bowl of beans and rice (with a few garnishes)?
And why are you paying $6 (US) or more for a bowl of beans and rice? You’re going to splurge, darn it! It’s your treat … you’ve succumbed to the trap of fast food. If it’s good for you—or at least *better*—it quickly becomes obvious that it’s *NOT WORTH IT*. You could make it better and cheaper at home. If you’re just driving through or on a lunch break, you can almost justify the convenience of “fast food” to yourself, but if you decide to “go out” for fast food? You’ve been played. Of course, if you think any further about it, you realize that the less-good-for-you option also is not worth it, as it, too, is over-priced and lacking in real ‘value’ (flavor, quality of ingredients or preparation, bang-for-your-buck vs. made-at-home). That is, unless, you’re visiting out of nostalgia. Taco Johns in many places, a childhood treat. Taco Casa here. Arby’s, from all those childhood soccer-Saturdays and trips to the mall food court. Orange Julius, for the same reason, and so on.
But I digress.
That restaurant tortilla is 300+ calories; some of that may be fat added at the restaurant, but even if you use a store-bought 10 or 12″ tortilla at home you’ve got at least 200 calories on your hands. Pure starch and sugar, refined, limited vitamins and minerals. A blood-sugar spike. And that’s your cheese delivery system?
And then there is the quesadilla maker.
Alton Brown would not approve: it’s a pure single-tasker. It can’t function as a regular griddle or such because of its ridges. You can’t really adapt it for making crepes, though it’s tempting to try. Our has sat under the counter in a cupboard since at least January, probably last November or December.
I try not to acquire too many single-taskers. Ones that especially tick me off are those little sandwich presses. You know the ones: they’re roughly rectangular, containing two square-ish compartments, each divided diagonally. You plug them in, they get hot, you put bread in them, then cheese or other sandwich fillings, then more bread. You probably grease each surface, then you close it and lock it in place. When it’s done, the cheese has melted, the outer surfaces of the bread have brown and crisped, the entire object to be eaten has been compressed, and those diagonals help you gently tear each sandwich into two triangular segments. Mission accomplished.
I reserve hatred for them because whenever you visit a thrift store you’ll find them with the other cast-off appliances, and there they masquerade as waffle irons. Until you open them up, see two square compartments marred only by diagonals, and then you realize it’s a single-tasking sandwich press.
Neither the sandwich press nor the quesadilla maker is necessary, because if you cook at all you already have all the necessary tools in your kitchen: a skillet and another, heavy-ish pot/pan, possibly one filled with water or 30oz cans of tomatoes to weigh it down. You just oil your skillet and set it on medium, put your quesadilla of sandwich on it, put the other pot/pan, weighted down, on top of the food item, grill it a couple minutes and flip, and then eat.
Less mess, less fuss. Two fewer single-taskers.
I must admit, though, that I—we—own a couple single-taskers. Better, worse, ironic? Variations of the same single-tasker: the waffle iron. We moved in and Ms. S. brought hers, which we may or may not have used since living here. We drove up to my old stomping grounds and collected a bunch of my kitchen items, and in the process brought back my old, thrift-store-acquired “toast master” or similar “Belgian” waffle iron. That’s two. Then for my last birthday my best friend, Ms. L., sent me a new, fancier, round (vs. rectangular, two-square variety) iron, the one we use just about all the time now.
Con? It’s a single-tasker. You can’t make anything else in a waffle iron, really, than waffles.
Justification? How else are you to make waffles?
Part the Third
I returned to those high-ish-calorie quesadillas last spring.
Each Wednesday Ms. S. would have lunch with her father during his lunch break, and mid-spring I started joining them. The destination, while not always the same, was predictable. I was watching what I was eating, and I also wanted to try something new. Soon I started ordering the grilled mushroom quesadilla (with rice and beans). Thoughts? Vegetarian (though not vegan). The mushrooms provided both savoriness and a decent source of protein. It was an improvement upon a plain cheese quesadilla. Downside? Still high-calorie, but at the same time it was a once-a-week splurge.
A month or so ago I was paging through and making menus based on items in Vegan with a Vengeance (Isa Chandra Moskowitz) and decided to make breakfast burritos based on her tofu scrambler. Ms. S. and I went shopping and decided on a bag of corn tortillas—about 6″ across, 80 calories for two—and I liked the results, though Ms. S. found them a bit dry and/or hard to handle as “breakfast burritos” … they didn’t have the suppleness or chewiness of flour. And after two batches of breakfast burritos, we still had a lot of tortillas left over. Freezing them would only postpone the need to use them.
So I wondered: corn tortilla quesadilla? Why not.
Why not, indeed.
Links:
- herbivoracious.com/2008/07/quesadill a.html
- well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/ma ke-yourself-a-quesadilla/
Once day Ms. S., in a desire for pizza, brought home shredded pizza cheese, a small bag of it, and since she was not going to use it once she had consumed her guilty-pleasure-pizza, it was up to me to use the rest, which I did in a couple corn tortilla quesadillas.
But once that bag was empty, I still had tortillas. What to do? We had leftover vegan “cheese” slices (Galaxy? I think so) in the fridge, and Ms. S. hadn’t been eating them. And so for the past couple days that has become my project: finish off the “cheese” slices and tortillas, one slightly varied quesadilla at a time.
Fillings I’ve used that go with cheese?
- apple slices
- left-over “spicy tomato jam“
- sun-dried tomatoes
Two tortillas, two slices of “cheese,” a sun-dried tomato slice and some hot sauce comes in at only about 165 calories (8g of protein!). Just a skillet and a water-laden pot to squish the “parts.” This afternoon Ms. S. gets an apple-cinnamon waffle … I’ll use the ‘best’ of the three irons.
And that is the mid-morning quesadilla.
