Vegetarian Quesadillas

So yesterday a friend posted a link about burgers made from beans and rice.  The picture was tempting enough to click on it, and I discovered a blog with some yummy recipes.  One that caught my eye was this one: Vegan Quesadillas from the Everyday Vegetarian.

I had most of the ingredients, and what I didn't have could easily be remedied with subsitutes, so I got busy making dinner.  As we are no longer buying tortillas due to the plethora of preservatives and unhealthy, modified oils in them (not to mention the high cost in our area), I had time to mix up enough dough to make six tortillas while the beans were cooking.  In the end, I made enough modifications to the original recipe that it seemed best to write it out here to share with you guys, and my version was no longer vegan.

 It's yummy, healthy, and filling.  The amount I made provided enough for my husband and I each to have our own quesadilla, for our son to have a cheese quesadilla, and to have half of a quesadilla for lunch today.  If I'd had the ingredients for a salad, it probably would have stretched even farther.

INGREDIENTS:
6 Tortillas (I'll share how I make mine at the end of this recipe.)
1 can Organic Pinto Beans, drained (I used Trader Joe's, and it provides about 1 and 3/4 cups of beans.)
2 Cloves Garlic, minced
1/2 Yellow Onion, diced
1 c. Water
1 can Fire Roasted Tomatoes that have been mostly drained (leave a few tablespoons of liquid)
1/2 tsp. Ancho Chili Pepper (Chipotle or Adobo would be good too)
1 Sweet Bell Pepper, sliced (they used red; I had yellow on hand)
4 Mushrooms, sliced
1 T. Oil
1 T. Balsamic Vinegar
1-2 Avocados
3 T. Lime Juice
1/2 tsp. Kosher Salt
1/2 c. Shredded Cheese

INSTRUCTIONS: (I followed the ones in the original recipe fairly closely.)
1. Place beans in a sauce pan with garlic and onion and 1 cup of water.  Cook, uncovered, over medium heat until water is evaporated.  Add tomato with its remaining liquid and the Ancho Chili Pepper.  Cook a few more minutes until liquid is evaporated, stirring occasionally.  Set aside to cool.

2. Saute mushrooms in oil of your choice for about 5 minutes.  Add in sweet bell pepper slices and saute another 5 minutes or so.  Add the balsamic vinegar at the end and stir to coat.

3. Mash bean mixture with a fork.  It doesn't have to be fully mashed, just a bit to provide some creamy texture as if they were refried beans.

4. Mash avocado and add lime juice and kosher salt to make a simple guacamole.

5. Take one tortilla and spread 1/3 bean mixture, 1/3 mushroom and peppers, 1/3 of the avocado, 1/3 of the cheese, and top with another tortilla.  Cook in a skillet over medium heat 1-2 minutes each side, flipping carefully one time.  Repeat with the remaining tortillas.  Serve with your favorite salsa and plain yogurt or sour cream.

Inkling's Tortillas That Would Never Pass Mexican Inspection But Are Tasty Recipe  =)
(Real Mexican tortillas would never be a mixture of corn and flour.  They would be either one or the other.  And they'd never have baking powder in them either.  Most of the time they would be made with lard instead of butter.  One day when I learn how to render ethically farmed, pastured lard, I may try it instead of butter.)

INGREDIENTS: (This is enough to make about 8 - 8-10"tortillas.)
1 c. Maseca (Corn treated with lime - different from cornmeal.)
1/2 c. Unbleached All Purpose Flour
1/2 c. Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 tsp. Salt
1/4 tsp. Baking Powder
scant 1/4 c. cold Butter, cut into pieces
Room Temperature Water (maybe 2/3 - 1 cup)
Organic Cornmeal for rolling

INSTRUCTIONS:
1. In a large mixing bowl, mix maseca, flours, salt, and baking powder together with a mixing fork.

2. Add in butter pieces.  With clean hands, mix butter into the corn/flour mixture until completely combined and distributed evenly.

3. Adding in only a few tablespoonfuls at a time, pour water into flour mixture and mix with fork until dough begins to form.  You don't want it too dry, but you don't want it sticky.

4. When dough is moist enough to shape into a ball, bring it together with your hands and knead for at least five minutes up to ten minutes.  (It's important to do this by hand.  And quite frankly, it's kind of therapeutic.)

5. Divide dough into 8 even pieces and shape into balls.  Cover with a tea towel.

6. (At this point, I have a big dinner plate and several tea towels out.) Sprinkle work surface with cornmeal and flatten one ball onto cornmeal with hands.  Roll into a circle at least 8 inches in diameter. You want the tortilla to be less than 1/16th of an inch thick, but not so thin that it's tearing.  Put the first tortilla on the plate; cover with a tea towel, and continue layering them in between tea towels.

7. (When I make beans and rice, I cook these as needed so that they don't harden up.  And I cook them a bit longer so that they have a few tiny brown spots.  They can be stored uncooked and tightly covered in the refrigerator for a day or two if you have leftovers.)  For quesadillas, cook tortillas in a dry skillet over medium heat for a couple of minutes on each side.  Because you are going to cook them a second time once they are filled, you don't want to get them browned.  As each one is done cooking, put it on a plate and carefully cover it with a tea towel until they are all cooked and ready to assemble into quesadillas.  Now you are ready to pick up with step 5 on the quesadilla instructions.