Welcome back for Issue 3 of Half-Baked! Hopefully everyone’s exams went well – having the whole of reading week off is definitely a well-deserved break after all that studying. If you’re like me, you’ve probably been eating all kinds of unhealthy stuff while studying as well. Now that you have so much extra free time, maybe you can start making some healthier snacks as well. Not that this issue’s cream cheese quesadillas are the healthiest thing for you either, but they’re still a step up from eating two Kit-Kats and calling it lunch.
I actually tried these for the first time at Montana’s, where they decided to call them antojitos instead of quesadillas. They seemed simple enough to make – just a tortilla with cream cheese and bell peppers in them – but I still wanted to find a recipe online for them. Turns out, antojitos are just any sort of Mexican street food, including anything from quesadillas to tacos to tamales. So, calling these things antojitos is really a misnomer. I’m not really sure you can call them quesadillas either, cause you roll them up instead of laying them out on the baking sheet, but whatever, I’ll just go with it. All you have to know is that they taste really good and they’re amazing snack food, even if they take a while to prepare.
Cream Cheese Quesadillas – makes 4 quesadillas
Ingredients
- 4 tortillas
- A tub of spreadable cream cheese (you won’t need the whole tub… well you can use the whole tub if you want I suppose)
- About a quarter-block of cheddar cheese, grated
- One bell pepper, diced
- 1 or 2 green onions, chopped
- 4 chicken or fish strips (optional)
Preparation
Preheat your oven to 350°F. Lay the tortillas out flat and start spreading cream cheese all over them. Like, the more cream cheese the better – adding more cream cheese will help the cream cheese texture and flavour stand out. Next, sprinkle some cheddar cheese on top of each of the now cream-cheese covered tortillas. Add some of the diced bell pepper and chopped green onions to the tortillas, and if you want put some cut up chicken or fish strips on as well, but if you’re adding some meat make sure you’ve cut it quite small. Fold the two ends of the tortillas in, then wrap them up so all the contents of the quesadilla are enclosed, like a nice little burrito. Finally, place the quesadillas in the oven for 7-8 minutes (but keep an eye on them to make sure the tortillas don’t burn). And there you have it, a nice little snack for when you watch Netflix or do whatever your preferred post-midterm relaxing thing is.
These go really well with salsa, sour cream or hummus, and at Montana’s they were even served with a pesto sauce that was quite good. It’s quite a lot of work for just a snack, but I’d say the taste is more than worth it. It certainly beats eating out for a whole week straight.
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