I ran across pioneer woman’s spinach mushroom quesadilla recipe. Living with a Texan, I know he’s a big fan of those. He’s not usually a fan of mushrooms, but he will tolerate them and I think he’s growing to like them. He likes spinach a whole lot. Mr. B loves both, so I figured this was a win win.
Usually my quesadillas are just tortillas with Chihuahua cheese smashed in the middle and pan grilled, so the idea of making my life harder with a fancier recipe is of course appealing. Never in my LIFE have I spent so much time making a damn quesadilla.
First you take some mushrooms and slice them up.
Being that I’m the lazy, gadget wielding bitch you’ve come to know and love, of course I didn’t slice these by hand.
Never thought mushrooms could look ominous did ya?
See how easy that was?
Now, you melt butter in a pan. I happened to have a pan handy, however, I’d used said pan to fry bacon a few minutes before. It’s cast iron, so it really soaks up the bacon juice. Instead of washing it, I went ahead and drained off all the bacon fat and just stuck the butter in there. I mean, really? What’s NOT better with bacon fat and drippings?
Now add the mushrooms and sprinkle with some salt, and saute them up.
Now the recipe calls for adding wine. Well, I didn’t have any wine that wasn’t super sweet Christmas wine. I also don’t really typically like wine IN my food. So, I did what any woman in my position would do. I used chicken broth. Actually, I made chicken broth from granules.
I went ahead and poured in the broth.
You cook that until nearly all the liquid is reduced and place them to the side.
Now you basically do the same thing with the spinach except since spinach can’t cook that long you only add a few tablespoons of wine, or in my case, broth.
Now you put those two things together to the side.
Now you are going to prepare your cheese. It called for Monterey Jack, which I had some of. I also had some cheddar, swiss and pepper jack hanging around in small amounts in the fridge. So I mixed them all together and grated the crap out of them. Not by hand of course. Food processor. Hello!
I opened up my goat cheese, which this recipe calls for and I thought what a cool addition. I’d never heard of adding that to a quesadilla before. By the way, opening up goat cheese is a pain in the ass. Easy open container. Right.
Now, we start assembling the quesadilla. The recipe says to spread butter on each side. I decided to melt butter and brush it on one side right before going into the pan and brush it on the other side once I’d flipped it. Saves the mess in my opinion.
Now you put some cheese inside the tortilla.
The shadow is optional. Sorry.
Now you place some spinach mushroom filling and more cheese in there.
There’s that damn shadow again.
Ok, then you dot the filling with goat cheese and place another tortilla on top. Butter the tortilla and put the buttered side face down in the pan. Mind you: This recipe says to GRILL them. Well, I don’t have a grill on my oven so this will have to do.
I didn’t spread it around in the tortilla too much so it’s bumpy in the middle. I’d rather have a pregnant quesadilla going into the pan than a sloppy mess on my floor trying to hold it together while it goes in the pan, or, worse yet, the cheese oozing out the sides while it’s cooking. I’d rather smoosh it while it’s in the pan to desired non-pregnant-ness.
Then butter the side that’s face up and flip it.
And you’ll have this in a few minutes.
How was it? It was good. It wasn’t amazing, again, like I expected. BUT. I don’t think that’s the recipes fault at all. I made serious variations to it.
I didn’t grill it, I didn’t use just monterey jack cheese, I use chicken broth instead of wine and I used low carb tortillas.
Mr. B thought they were amazing, Texan’s only complaint was that he wasn’t a fan of spinach in his quesadillas apparently. Spinach yes, in this, no. Keep in mind as well that this family is accustomed to VERY plain quesadillas. Take ANY family who’s used to plain something and give them the fanciest something and they may not love it. It’s just how it goes.
However, I’m still planning on making the REAL version. And I suggest you do too, cause it just sounds so damn good.
immacraftybitch 