Squash Blossom Quesadillas

The Redmond Farmers' Market had bags of squash blossoms for sale. The only time I ate these, they tasted awesome, couldn't wait to try a recipe with them. Besides, the gal at the market totally sold me on these, as well as some great-looking beet greens. Yum!

Most recipes seem to just lay out the blossoms with grated cheese and maybe some grilled onions. But I really wanted more veggies in there. So, this is what I went with:

Squash Blossom Quesadillas
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5-6 tomato tortillas (PCC carried these for a few weeks *yummy*!)
1 onion - sliced long
1/2 green bell pepper - julienned
1/2 red bell pepper - julienned
1 carrot - grated (medium or large shreds)
1/2 can black beans - rinsed
kernels from 1 ear of steamed corn
15-20 squash blossoms
salt and Marie Sharp habanero-carrot sauce for seasoning
1/2 cup of grated pepperjack cheese
1/2 t of olive oil

Heat oil and saute the onions till they turn brown. Throw in the bell peppers and carrots and saute for about 6-7 minutes. Add the beans and corn and let it simmer for another 3-4 minutes. Turn off the stove and throw in the squash blossoms and seasonings.

Spoon out the veggie mix onto a tortilla and sprinkle with some grated cheese. Top with another tortilla, press it down. Cook both sides on a griddle till tortillas are crisp and the cheese is melted inside.

The flavors of the squash blossoms was awesome! The slightly sweet flavors seemed to blend quite well with a tangy pineapple salsa.

Yay!

An almost perfect dinner

And I'm only saying that because nothing is perfect, right? (And there was no tuna in our meal!)

Last night, we made the simplest, most flavorful blackbean soup we've ever had. I wasn't super convinced about the recipe when we started, it almost seemed too simple - no tomatoes, no corn, hmm ... was this going to be super plain? No! It was absolutely divine. Really flavorful and light. The recipe called for a tsp of sugar, but we tossed in 1/2 cup of white wine instead and it totally did the trick. Also, we added a ton of garlic (obviously!) and some grated ginger too which gave the soup some extra zing.
Recipe source: Soup, a Way of Life

I absolutely loved the rice dish we also cooked up (apparently, it was carbo-load day!) - probably my fave coconut rice ever. Growing up, we always ate coconut rice containing freshly grated coconut and spices. But this time, we cooked the rice in unsweetened diluted coconut milk instead. Threw in a bunch of roasted cashews, spiced it with roasted red chillies, cumin, mustard and urad dal ==> *very* happy!

And we opened our first white wine of the season - an Albarino - *delicious*!

Mexican Minestrone - *yum*

Last night, we were ready for a *hot* sopa from the famous Great Bowls of Fire. Of course, we skipped the parsley in favor of loads of cilantro, and replacing the oregano with a dash of coriander seemed like the right thing to do.

*so* good!

Thanks Pupp! Thanks, GBF!

And our next Jay Solomon book is on its way.