The Baking Dentist
Fixing teeth. cooking. and baking in Paradise.Archive for Uncategorized
Easy Chicken Mushroom Quesadillas
So I joined another group called Craving Ellie in My Belly. Funny thing is I was just surfing the web jumping from one blog to another, and I came across this blog…and noticed I already had some of these cookbooks. More interesting was I had never tried any of the recipes. So this was a perfect way to actually make myself try some of it. The postings are meant to be every Thursday. (Please remember I’m on Pacific Time Zone!!)
This week’s recipe was Easy Chicken Mushroom Quesadillas (recipe here), chosen by Marthe of Culinary Delights.
I must say…flipping those Quesadillas was hard!!! So I made a couple of changes here and there. I never really liked “cubed” chicken. I just think it makes the meat…so…tough. So I decided to shred it!
No cubes for me!
Just so that I could make it a bit healthier, rather than using any kind of oil to cook the chicken, I cooked it in boiling water for about 15 minutes. And it came out very tender!
The next step was to cook everything…
Everything in the pan
I loved how the filling to tortilla ratio was very very generous with this recipe. I hate it when I order quesadillas and I get two slabs of tortilla with like 0.2 mm of filling in between!
looks like pizza!
Also, just to have a little more veggie, I put a layer of spinach over the tortilla before putting the filling on top of it.
Done!
The hardest part for me was flipping the quesadilla over after 3 minutes. My first one just came all undone and it was a huge mess!!! So for the second one, I actually cut it into fours before putting it on the pan. Which made life so much easier.
As for the Salsa, I used medium heat.
medium heat salsa
And for the sour cream. Here’s my 3rd change. I used greek yogurt rather than sour cream! Have you heard of Fage?? It’s my favorite thing right now. I had some sour cream at home, but after tasting it, I went with Fage and it was oh-so-good. And no fat, too! I’ve been hooked on these things…eating it with frozen fruits and agave with some salt sprinkled on top. I’ll post a pic of that later.
Fage Greek Yogurt
And here’s the whole finished product. I definitely enjoyed it! Just need a little bit more practice with the flipping!
Pecans and Walnuts
My mom is visiting me from Korea right now and she was craving some Espresso Brownies. So, a couple days ago, to put in those brownies…I bought some Walnuts and Pecans and Walnuts and Pecans and…was left with too much Walnuts and Pecans!
So i decided to make some Pecan Powder Puff as found in Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours (page 156). She also has a version with walnuts as a side note, so I was able to use both.
Pecan Powder Puffs cooling on the rack
…and I STILL had some left! So I decided to make some Glazed Walnuts and Pecans to munch on. I forgot where I got the recipe for the glazed nuts. It was just scribbled down and tucked in one of the kitchen cabinets. But these don’t have any butter…and even the eggs, it’s only egg whites! That means it’s healthy, right? Okay…maybe not, with all the sugar that goes in it.
Just be aware that these glazed nuts lack the chewiness that other recipes may have, but they come out really crispy and crunchy which was exactly what I was craving! Although I had written down the recipe for walnuts, I used a mixture of walnuts and left over pecans (after making the powder puffs).
Glazed Walnut Recipe
Crunchy Crispy Glazed Walnuts and Pecans
2 egg whites
1 cup sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground red pepper
1 tsp salt
4 cups toasted walnut halves
- Preheat oven to 250
- Have an oiled or nonstick baking sheet ready
- Toast the walnuts on a skillet (no oil) about 1 minute stirring or shaking the skillet so the nuts don’t burn. Set aside to cool.
- In a bowl, whisk the egg whites until they are light and foamy
- In a separate bowl, mix and whisk together the sugar, cinnamon, red pepper, and salt
- Gently whisk in the dry mix (step 5) into the egg whites
- Mix in the nuts to the above mixture, coating all the nuts evenly
- Spread out evenly in a single layer onto the baking sheet
- Put in oven for 30 minutes
- Stir around and bake for 30 more minutes
- Immediately spread out on wax paper and cool on rack
- After they are completely cooled, store in airtight container for up to a week.
However, I doubt that they will last that long. I actually used brown sugar because I ran out of regular ones, and added red pepper flakes because I didn’t have ground ones…and were too lazy to grind them myself. But I actually loved the spiciness whenever I got the whole flake in the bite. Next time I make these, I think I’ll actually add more red pepper flakes.
They are also very good as garnish on salads or decorative (and yummy!) additions for all sorts of cookies!
