Jennifer got the Moosewood Restaurant Cooks At Home cookbook for Christmas. With a New Year’s resolution to cook more and better meals at home, it has served us quite well. We’ve been particularly pleased with two varieties of quesadilla. They are fairly quick to make, and they keep very well for a few days. This week we’ve had the spicy corn quesadillas, and our first foray was with sweet potato quesadillas.
1½ cups finely chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 cups grated peeled sweet potato (about 3 potatoes)
½ teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
generous pinch of cayenne
salt and ground black pepper to taste
1 cup grated Mexican cheese (Moosewood specifies sharp cheddar, but we both prefer milder Mexican white cheese)
Sauté the onions and garlic in the vegetable oil until the onions are translucent. Add the grated sweet potatoes, oregano, chili powder, cumin and cayenne and cook, covered, for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently to prevent sticking. When the sweet potato is tender, add salt and pepper to taste and remove the filling from the heat.
Once you have the filling, the rest should be pretty basic – while heating a bit of oil in a pan, spread some of the filling over a tortilla and sprinkle on some of the cheese. Our skillet is the perfect size for taco-sized tortillas, so we put a second tortilla on top and put ‘em in the pan. If you have large tortillas, you might cover just half with filling and fold over.
We got 6 or 8 quesadillas out of this recipe. The filling seems to keep fine in the freezer if you can’t eat it all right away. We like to serve them with salsa on top: the current favorite brand is Herdez salsa casera.
The spicy corn quesadillas are just as good, but you’ll have to buy the book for that recipe!