Quesadillas with Black Beans, Corn and Tomatoes

A few days ago we finally got a fish for Alex’s aquarium. We knew you were suposed to start small–i.e., don’t get 10 fish at once–so we just got one. But here is the problem. We got the fish at Meijer’s, where I had not been planning to buy a fish, but we were there so I figured why not. Well why not is that they know nothing about fish there. I told the lady we did not want a schooling fish (a fish that lives in a school of fish and therefor needs multiple fish of its kind to be happy). So she sold us a green tetra (a glow fish).

Meet Verde. We brought him home, he swam around happily, ate some food… and then disappeared in the ornament and did not come back up for 2 days. On the 2nd day, we went to PetSmart, to get some advice, possibly add some fish, etc. Well it turns out tetra, and therefore Verde, are schooling fish, so by bringing Verde home alone, we basically had a miserable, lonely, confused fish. Agh! We have since added ZeeLo (also green), Rouge (pink) and Sunset (orange), all glowing Tetras. I don’t have any pictures of them yet, but suffice to say Verde is no longer hiding and everyone is much happier.

Sheesh!

But after a day spent dealing with this (PetSmart is over 30 minutes away and so we combined it with other errands too), I needed a fast dinner. So I turned to what is one of our favorite summertime meals, quesadillas. Now I realize that quesadillas would make great year round meals–but my favorite quesadillas have tomatoes and corn in them, which means they are best in the summer, when the tomatoes and corn are local, freshly picked and super flavorful. This meal comes together in minutes. I would count on at least 1 10-inch flour tortilla per person–more if you don’t have salad or fruit to serve with them.

For a great pico de gallo to serve with them, check out the pico de gallo that I make in the summer with heirloom tomatoes!

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Quesadillas

The recipe is written out for 1 quesadilla--be sure to multiply by however many servings you need!

Course: Entree

Cuisine: Southwestern

Keyword: quesadilla

Author: TheSpicedLife

Ingredients

• 1 10- inch flour tortilla from the refrigerator section of the grocery store
• 5 grape or cherry tomatoes sliced into rounds
• 1/4 cup cooked and rinsed black beans
• 1/4 cup cooked corn
• 2/3 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 2/3 cup shredded Monterey jack cheese
• 1 t vegetable oil

Instructions

1. Mix together the 2 cheeses.
2. Preheat a nonstick or cast iron skillet over medium high heat. Using a heat-proof brush, spread the teaspoon of oil out all over the cooking surface.
3. Place the flour tortilla onto the skillet.
4. Sprinkle half of the cheese over 1 side of the tortilla. Sprinkle the tomatoes, black beans and corn over the cheese. Sprinkle the remaining cheese over that.
5. Fold the empty half of the tortilla over the filled half. Cook the quesadilla for another few minutes, to lightly brown the bottom side. Then carefully flip the quesadilla over to lightly brown the other side.
6. Slide the quesadilla out onto a cutting board. Slice into 4 wedges. Serve with sour cream and salsa.*
7. *When tomatoes are not in season, I prefer to dollop some fresh salsa into the quesadilla instead of tomatoes.