Black Bean and Corn Quesadillas

My friend, Robin Burks, tweeted about having Black Bean and Corn Quesadillas for dinner and I asked for a link for the recipe. It had a simple list of ingredients and seemed quick to make but the night I got the recipe it was late and I decided to go with something I’d made before.

Anyway, last night I finally made the quesadillas and they came out wonderfully! The most time consuming part was really chopping the onion… So definitely try this if you want something easy peasy and good. Below I have a few progress pictures from my cooking session (taken on my phone, so please forgive the quality):

Brown sugar, pepper flakes, and taco sauce…

…added to black beans and corn…

…quesadilla assembly in progress…

…and yummy quesadilla goodness!

I hope you all had an awesome weekend! Until next time. 😀

Black Beauty

Adam’s Spooky Apples from Matt Bites.

I don’t really do Halloween. When I was in 2nd grade my mom became a Christian and that was that. I never really regretted not celebrating though, having a healthy theatrical streak, I did miss the dressing up in costume though.

Still, every now and then I’ll see something Halloween related and I kinda get a pang. Every now then, a little voice in my head will say ‘Jo, you’re totally missing out!’. This recipe for black and red candy apples for Halloween from food blog, Matt Bites, is just such a thing. These apples are so beautiful that they make me wish I did do Halloween.

I don’t do Halloween… so I won’t… but maybe you do? And maybe you hadn’t found this recipe yet (and believe me, it is a discovery)? And… maybe you needed that little extra something to make your Halloween party sing?

This is the it. Adam’s Spooky Apples @ MattBites.com.

Trying It On

So, lately I’ve been trying to do more things that I’ve always wanted to do. There are a lot of things to choose from on that list! I’m starting small: I’m actually cooking recipes that I find instead of clipping them and shuffling the paper around. Here are two that I made this week:

Pasta with Chicken and Broccoli

This recipe is from an app that I got for my android phone from the magazine Real Simple. I generally find their recipes pretty yummy looking so I decided to give it a try because it didn’t call for a lot of stuff and seemed like it’d be easy to cook. It tasted great but the instructions were a little confusing. At the end when you add the water, I got the impression it’s supposed to cook down and you get this saucy kind of consistency. That didn’t happen. Still, it tasted really good… which is surprising considering the recipe doesn’t call for any seasonings at all. I salted the water for the rigatoni and that was it. Overallz I’d recommend giving the recipe (and the app) a try.

Easy Pizza Pie

This was my second attempt at this recipe (first attempt here) and I loved it even more the second time around. I doubled the crust recipe so I could fill a whole jelly roll pan with dough, spread some red pasta sauce on it, then threw on my toppings. The second time was even better than the first. One thing I did, that I think made a subtle but important difference, was to add cracked pepper and herbs to the Bisquick before I made it up. Definitely try this one if you need something quick to do… I think kids would definitely like it.

Coming up for me on the “try new things” front: I’m joint the Charlotte Modern Quilt Guild. The first meeting is June 23, 2011 at the Morrison Library. I’m really looking forward to getting my quilt on!