Crossing borders with imaginative dishes
When my friend Lacy and I get together, we talk, we drink wine and we cook.
On a recent jaunt around the state, Steve and I made a stop at her beautiful hacienda to the west. Our cooking was so inspirational that Steve even took a turn at making a meal.
None of the meals we made there are featured here...I'll share a dish or two later, but as we drove to one of our next destinations, I imagined some new dishes that crossed borders and melded flavors with abandon. Why is it necessary to stick to Mexican flavors, for example, when one of your ingredients when using tortillas as the crust for a meal? Being what my daughter Genevieve calls "ethnically ambiguous", I decided to do some fusion cooking and came up with these...a little taste of Italy, south of the border
Roasted Red Pepper Quesadillas
4 small tortillas
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 large onion, diced
1 large tomato, roughly chopped
1 roasted red pepper, roughly chopped
1 teaspoon of oregano
1/2 cup of grated cheese
Several sprigs of cilantro, chopped
Sour cream for garnish
- In a small skillet heat the olive oil and add the onion. Cook until the union is translucent, about 5 minutes.
- Add the tomato, the red pepper and the oregano and cook for another 5 minutes.
- Remove the mixture from heat and transfer it to a bowl. Wipe out the skillet and return it to the heat.
- Put a tortilla in the bottom of the skillet and spread the tomato-red pepper mixture over it. Sprinkle cheese and cilantro on top of the mixture. Plop the second tortilla on top of mixture and cook over a medium-low heat until the cheese starts to melt. Using a wide spatula, carefully turn the quesadilla over in the skillet and allow to cook until the cheese has melted and the tortillas are crispy.
- Repeat with the other tortillas.
- Cut the quesadillas into four or more triangles, garnish with cilantro and sour cream and serve immediately.
This serves two, but the recipe can be easily increased to feed a bigger crowd!
Vegetarian.
