Multitasking Quesadillas

I was never one to improvise. If there was a resource to seek out I would, trusting the wisdom of the printed word over my own ability to fumble through. When I learned to play the piano it was through years of lessons and dozens of songbooks, exercises and drills and scales. When I learned to knit, it was through Debbie Stoller’s Stitch and Bitch and patterns on Knitty. When I learned how to cook a few years ago, actual full balanced dinners for two adults and not just mac and cheese and frozen broccoli or rice and beans, I turned to cookbooks and followed recipes down to the quarter teaspoon. Chemistry was never my strongest subject, but no one would know by watching the precision in my cooking. I needed exact direction, exact measurements, exact ingredients. No substitutions, no guesstimating, nothing. What was on the page was in my bowl.

This was no way to go through life. It drove me crazy. I need to eat every day – do I have to follow a recipe to the letter to do that? I had to allow myself to break away from the books and figure things out for myself. I want to just sit down at the piano and fool around, playing notes on the blues scale. I want to sit in front of the TV and figure out how to knit some leg warmers. I want to throw all of my food in a 12-inch skillet and sauté until it’s done.


I hadn’t meant to start out with this recipe because like all my recipes it’s not really much of a recipe at all. Still, it’s a fitting first entry, because it’s probably the first time I trusted myself to make up a whole meal on my own, and it’s now a go-to weeknight meal. It’s easy, it’s cheap, it might be healthy, and the prep is the hardest part. And while I will in the course of this blog post the possibly maybe kinda ethnic meals promised in the introduction, what follows is definitely of the “ethnic” variety.

Multitasking Quesadillas

This recipe could also make fake fajitas, depending on if you decide to melt the cheese at the end. The boyfriend and I have been known to eat these both ways, depending on our mood and time constraints.

1lb chicken breast or cutlet, cut into strips
1 small yellow onion, cut into strips
1-2 peppers, cut into strips, or most of a 16oz package of frozen pepper strips
Large tortillas or wraps
8oz shredded cheese (cheddar, taco blend, what-have-you)
1 1/2 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon chili powder (or more to taste)
salt to taste
Lime juice
Olive oil
Cooking spray (optional)

Serves 2 with leftovers


In a 12-inch skillet or other large skillet over medium heat, put a quarter to half dollar-sized drop of olive oil in the pan, and add chicken. Move the chicken around in the pan until it turns white and is cooked through. Thinner chicken strips will cook faster. Remove the chicken to a bowl or plate.

If there is no more oil in the pan, add another quarter to half dollar-sized drop. Saute the onions and pepper strips until the onions and peppers are shiny and wilt a little. (5-10 minutes)

Add the chicken, then add seasonings: oregano, paprika, chili powder, salt if using, and a squirt of lime juice. Feel free to eyeball these – besides chili powder, it’s hard to use too much of the spices. You can also add a 1/4-1/2 teaspoon of cumin, but since I don’t have any I never do. You could also add garlic powder, but since I prefer minced garlic and that’s another step I don’t use that either.

If you’re making “fajitas,” you’re done. Wrap the chicken and shredded cheese in your tortilla wrap and eat. If you want quesadillas, you can either move the chicken and peppers to your bowl or plate, or use a separate griddle. If you use the same pan, the grease spots and leftover stuff will mean your quesadillas might not be as pretty when cooked, but they’ll still taste great.

If using, spray your pan/griddle with cooking spray. Your burner should still be over medium heat. Lay your tortilla in your pan and top evenly with shredded cheese. Use as much as you’d like, but as more cheese will take longer to melt, you should turn down the heat slightly for a pile of cheese. Add chicken and peppers to one side of the tortilla, and fold the other side over on top of it. Cook for a moment (a minute or two) turning over halfway through. Remove quesadilla, and repeat process until you’re done, you’ve run out of chicken, or you’re bored. You can eat the rest as fajitas, and you can freeze the chicken better if it’s not assembled into a quesadilla. Assembled quesadillas will taste fine reheated from the refrigerator the next day or two.

I have served this as an appetizer at football parties - cut into wedges and served with salsa, guacamole, and sour cream. Sometimes for dinner we have none of those things, but it’s still good. Enjoy.

A note on lime juice: I keep both a bottle of lemon juice and lime juice in the fridge for use in many recipes as well as to flavor my water and beer. They’re cheap and keep much longer than lemons and limes. Of course, you can’t zest them, but when’s the last time you used lemon zest, anyway?