Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Easy, fast, and cheap


Pizza Quesadillas
Better Homes and Gardens Pizzas Cooking For Today Copyright 1994

½ cup pizza sauce
6 7-inch flour tortillas
2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese with jalapeno peppers or Monterey Jack cheese (8 ounces) I used less
1/3 cup finely chopped pepperoni
3 tablespoons sliced pitted ripe olives I didn't use these

Spread some of the pizza sauce on half of each tortilla. Sprinkle Monterey Jack cheese atop pizza sauce on each tortilla. Top with pepperoni and olives. Fold tortillas in half; press down edges gently.

In a large skillet or griddle cook tortillas, 2 or 3 at a time, over medium heat about 4 minutes or till cheese melts, turning once. I used my Griddler.

Cut each tortilla into three triangles. Makes 9 appetizer servings.

Nutritional information per serving: 194 calories, 9 g protein, 13 g carbohydrate, 12 g fat, 27 mg chol, 427 mg sodium, 109 mg potassium
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I had pepperoni and I had pizza sauce so this recipe caught my eye. I served it for dinner, not as an appetizer. Why not?

I used turkey pepperoni which wasn't on sale and isn't exactly inexpensive but it goes a long way. I think a package costs about $4 and I used some in a pasta dish like this, some in this recipe and I probably used the rest for snacking.

You can pretty much throw anything in a tortilla with a bit of cheese and call it dinner. It's a great way to stretch a small amount of meat and/or to use up leftovers. Tortillas are cheap and they make many varieties of them. It looks like I used basic flour tortillas here but I most often get the whole wheat ones for $1.99 (for 8 of them). They have a decent amount of fiber but they don't break the bank like some of the fancier 'healthier' varieties.

I made these a while ago. Since then I have started folding tortillas up burrito-style. I can get more filling in them that way (without it oozing out) and I can fit more of them on my Griddler at once. I use a bit of cooking spray on them to get the tortillas extra crispy.

I found this cookbook at the Goodwill store. It is part of a series put out by Better Homes and Gardens. Many of my favorite cookbooks were published by Better Homes and Gardens. I have the chicken version and I've made several good recipes from it and this pizza version has a lot of potential in it too.

I paid $2.97 which is kind of a lot, IMO, for a book from Goodwill. This book isn't very large either (but there was a big $12.99 retail price sticker on it). Their cookbooks were topping out at $1.97 but they seemed to have raised their prices on cookbooks at some point. Probably a good thing since it makes me pickier about which cookbooks, if any, come home with me.

Oh, the Goodwill store. I am finding so many treasures there. Many are cooking related so expect to read about those in future posts.

2 comments:

Sheila said...

We love quesadillas and most of my family loves pizza--don't know why I've never thought to put the two together. I think I'll make my daughter really happy and make these soon. Thanks for sharing. My most favorite quesadilla is leftover chicken--just a bit, some shredded cheddar cheese and sweet Thai chili sauce. Take care.

Christina said...

Thanks for a great cheap alternative to pizza ! Keep them coming !