The number one tip for those who are super busy (or lazy); demand great flavor; and want to be your healthiest: eat these quesadillas.
With a glass of water, this offers all the nutrition we need as humans, covering all vitamins and minerals (our micronutrients), and protein, complex carbs, and 'good' fat (our macronutrients).
Makes 4 tortillas' worth.
Ingredients:
2 purple potatoes
1 cup cilantro, washed and roughly chopped
1 roasted poblano pepper, chopped
4 tortillas
2 tsp salt
Directions:
Cook potatoes by steaming, baking in a 425 degree F oven for 30-40 minutes, or nuking in a microwave by poking holes throughout each potato with a fork then placing on a paper towel and microwaving for 1-2 mins at a time until cooked through (they will be soft once done).
Once cool enough to handle, mash potato in a bowl and add cilantro, poblano pepper, and salt to taste. Mix. (You can either leave the potato skins on, or remove them.)
Eyeballing the potato mix into four equal parts, spread the mix on one half of each tortilla and fold tortillas over; press down gently.
On a heated non-stick pan, fry tortillas for 30 seconds per side, continuing to flip until tortillas are golden brown. Optional: add some oil to pan before frying tortillas. (Alternatively, fry/heat tortillas on each side first, then place filling inside, fold over in half, and cut into portions.)
If you used oil, top quesadillas with a hit of salt and enjoy!
Step by Step
I love the poblano pepper. I've never had them before moving to southern California and being introduced to them by my hubby. They're slightly sweet, super flavorful, and so delicious. When I spot them in the grocery store, I always feel drawn to them. 🧲🥰
If you have a gas stovetop, fire it up and place a clean, dry pepper right over the fire 🔥 turning it every 30 seconds or so. Have metal tongs handy to turn them. They're done when there's a black crust formed around them at which point, let them rest, or put them in a bowl and cover them for a few minutes. If you don't have a gas stovetop, you can broil them in an oven, watching them every minute or so and turning them until they're nice and blistered like this:
Once cool enough to handle, remove the blistered skin from the pepper(s) and then chop them up. You can remove the seeds and the capsaicin which is the part that makes chili peppers spicy.
Some poblanos are spicy, others are not. The only way to know how spicy they are is to taste them.
Meanwhile, nuke your potatoes (or steam or bake them).
Grab a large bowl and place your potatoes, chopped fresh cilantro, and chopped pickled jalapenos (and roasted peppers) and mix.
Don't want to go to the trouble of roasting peppers? No problem, add pickled jalapenos instead - or both.
Pan fry a tortilla on both sides until golden and to your liking.
Then spread some of this mixture to half of it. For little Elle, I only added the cooked purple potato seasoned with salt. (Once I made her quesadillas, I made the grown-up versions with peppers. 🤤)
Fold over:
Cut into pieces, top with a little salt to bring out the flavor, and serve with a lime wedge so your little one feels like a chef when she squeezes it over her quesadillas. (And gets a tasty hit of fresh acid which balances out the rich mushiness of the potato):
Now for the adult-version...
For dinner, I served this with a kale caesar salad for more oomph and calories.
I got this quesadilla recipe from Serious Eats - I love it when they do a vegan recipe but their non-vegan recipes are great too and sometimes easy to transform into a meatless meal. Like traditional chefs, their version is loaded with oil and fried like a proper quesadilla but all oil is harmful and not ideal for optimal health - yes, even olive oil.
I think a great compromise is using either a bit of oil, or just skipping it altogether.
And speaking of optimal health, did you know that potatoes have all the nutrition we need?
John McDougall, M.D. and a founding father of the modern plant-based era, states that we can live off of potatoes and water alone!
"Potatoes can provide complete nutrition for children and adults. Many populations, for example people in rural populations of Poland and Russia at the turn of the 19th century, have lived in very good health doing extremely hard work with the white potato serving as their primary source of nutrition." - John McDougall, M.D.
So depending on your level of #lazy you could literally survive (and thrive) this way. Not ideal, of course, you'd want to also add some vegetables and fruit to your life but it's interesting nonetheless that we can be healthy this simply.
✌️💓