Chicken Spinach Quesadilla

This recipe has been one of my favorites...but of course in younger years I did not have all of the knowledge and so it wasn't as flavorful as now.

Play with the spices if you want to create more of one type of flavor if desired. I like much more garlic then that, I would double the recipe as well as marinate the chicken next time.

This was a fast meal, perfect for those extra unexpected guests as well as a long day and don't have time meal, which is more and more me.

Burrito size flower tortillas

Natural Monterey cheese

Filling

3 chopped chicken breasts

2 t minced garlic or more to taste

1 t chili powder

1 t cumin

1 t onion powder

1 T Texas Pete Chipotle Hot Sauce, or similar

1 T Texas Pete Extra Hot Sauce or favorite hot sauce

1 t Cajun or Creole seasoning

1 Cup frozen spinach or fresh according to taste

Mix all but spinach together in pan and fry on medium with a little bit of olive oil until it is done turn down a notch if needed and add ¼ cup water and spinach. Cook till soft.

Putting it together:

Grate natural Monterey cheese, enough to graciously cover the tortilla, and add chicken. Fry with vegetable oil until golden brown on each side and cheese is melted.

I made plate size or burrito size flower tortillas and this recipe makes 6 or 7 of them well stuffed. It made some amazing left-overs for future meals.


Let me know if you have any suggestions or if you tried it! I would love feedback!!

Very Strawberry Shake

So I decided to use my blender for the first time.

It was warm enough in the house and outside to finally have a shake and I was not going to pass the opportunity up! I found a recipe online and tweaked it a bit as the vanilla ice cream I bought to make these with got eaten before I was able to use it.....


1 cup of water

1/4 cup sugar

4 cups of ice

5 or 6 frozen or fresh strawberries

1/2 cup half and half (or milk)

1/2 t vanilla extract

1/2 t maple syrup

1/2 t lemon juice


Mix the water and sugar and let the sugar dissolve.

Mix every ingredient in blender until smooth.

This recipe will make about 2 smoothies.


Let me know if you make any changes to this recipe or have any other good ideas for it!

Start of a New Adventure

On Thanksgiving day, at 5am in the morning, me and my husband's lives changed forever. We excitedly accepted our new roles as parents and plunged into a life that we still have no idea what we got ourselves into.

Autumn Persephone (her middle name) is less than a week away from 4 months old.

For now I am a stay at home Mom. I have a part time online job, however the rest of my days consist of making sure that she is taken care of, straitening the house, playing secretary to my hard working husband and having a blast cooking, crafting or whatever else I can get into.



NOW...you can see what conditions I have to work with. NO....I am NOT one of those middle class suburbia wives who has a large kitchen, a multiple bedroom house with Autumn's own cute nursery and my own car to go to yoga class in the mornings.

Actually after a turn of events (turn of the economy is more like it) we are starting over again after really not having a whole lot to begin with. We are in the city, close to everything we need in a quaint one bedroom duplex on a decently quiet road. We share one older car that needs a little too much TLC to make it super nice looking, and oh ya...this is my kitchen!!!

Ha Ha Ha! Oh ya....no counter space...and for at least a couple weeks...no microwave! I do not even have a mixer...let alone the ROOM for one! Behind the stove (which you can barely open the fridge past) is a little window that I thankfully can open while cooking.

But here is how I look at it....If I can make these amazing meals in a reasonable amount of time on a budget....so can anyone. The things I do are things you see being done in a large kitchen or a craft room. Mine will be done in this tiny cooking area and my little living room.

So I do not want to hear any excuses as to why anyone else cannot do exactly what I am doing! I have a full day, but plenty of relax time as well as time to upkeep a very fast paced online life. And no I am not talking about my 1945 friends on Facebook....I think I might have like 35 friends on there...all my family. I do a lot of research as well as learn how to build and design computer programs.

More on that sometime later when I have something to show.

When we moved into this one bedroom last month I dived right into the cooking frenzy. I took some pictures of my food, but sadly they turned out so fuzzy I would not want to show them....So sadly this post will not have pics of the food.

The first thing I made was an awesome chicken recipe. I purchased a bunch of chicken breasts on sale and threw them right into the freezer, using only a small portion of the meat I had for the month.


Cream Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breasts


4 Chicken Breast Halves

8 Slices of Bacon (thick slice if you can find it)

1 Package of Cream Cheese

1/2 Package of Sliced Mushrooms

2 Handfuls of Fresh Spinach

1 T Minced Garlic in a Jar (2 t of garlic powder if you do not have it)

1/2 t Onion Powder

2 t of Italian Seasoning


For on Top

2 Chicken Gravy Packs


Preheat oven to 400.

Butterfly your chicken breasts. If you do not know how to do that properly, I have a good slideshow and video link you would like http://tinyurl.com/4ru7oe2

Cut up the sliced mushroom into even chunks and mix everything besides the meat together in a bowl. Add mushrooms and spinach according to how much you would want in the chicken breasts.

Put even amounts of mixture into the middle of each breast. Fold closed and wrap tightly with two pieces of bacon.

Put it into the oven on a baking sheet for 25 to 45 minutes depending on oven and size of chicken breast. Use a meat thermometer if you have one. 165 is the recommended temperature for chicken.

The bacon will be crispy but certainly not burnt and they might leak out a little of the stuffing.

I serve this with chicken gravy on top, you can if you choose, as well as green beans.

Since there is only two of us, this meal lasts for one night plus lunch or dinner another day!