Week 33 - Midnight Snacks

What do you usually eat for a midnight snack? These days for me, it's usually some frozen berries or a piece of candy, or maybe some chicken nuggets if I'm hungrier. In college, it was a sandwich or sometimes fried rice or pizza (all takeout, had no kitchen). None of those really seemed right for the midnight snacks challenge, so I thought about what I might have gone for back then if I had had a kitchen. Quesadillas came to mind, so I went with that.

The ingredients for the quesadillas were:

- 4 whole wheat tortillas

- 1 can of chicken

- taco seasoning

- shredded cheese

- about 1/4 cup of cilantro leaves

Pretty simple, and on the side, we had the southwestern chopped salad kit from TJ's. This was good for an easy weekday meal, although it did take a little bit of time since each quesadilla had to be made separately in the pan.

The steps were easy. Mix the chicken with taco seasoning. Tear up the cilantro leaves into smaller pieces. Heat pan. Lay tortilla flat in the pan. Add thin layer of cheese, followed by taco chicken, a sprinkling of cilantro leaves, and then another layer of cheese. Fold quesadilla over and cook on both sides until done. No idea if this is how other people make quesadillas, but it's the way that makes sense to me.

I like these whole wheat tortillas because of their texture but also because they're handmade. That presented other challenges though, like the fact that they weren't perfect circles and didn't always fold over exactly evenly. Even if a little uneven, they turned out fine.

The first quesadilla I made, I thought I had put enough stuff in it, but it turned out pretty thin and with not that much melted cheese. I increased the amount of cheese in future ones, and by the third one, I had much better ratios for the filling which was evident in the photos of the cross-sections.

The quesadillas were pretty good, although they tasted like "healthy" versions of quesadillas. Maybe it was the wheat tortilla, maybe it was less cheese, less oil. I didn't mind though. Since we were eating it with salad on the side, I didn't bother thinking about sides of sour cream or pico de gallo, but we think they would have been better with that.

Overall, not a bad dinner. Not sure I'd go through all this work for an actual midnight snack though.