Tuna Salad Quesadillas – A Recipe in a Title

Tuna Salad Quesadillas — a Recipe in a Title

 If you read both blogs regularly, you’ll be starting to feel like I’m hooked on this sort of salad.  In fact, I’m not.

Farro Salad with Canned Salmon, Basil, Tomatoes  and Spinach on my Dinner Place blog

Somehow, however, they end up in my cooking-for-one lineup fairly regularly because they’re easy to make for lunch or, more likely, because my husband adores them.  He’s pretty much a sandwich fiend ( just watch him eat a great sub), but give him egg salad, tuna salad, etc., and he’s beyond a pretty happy guy.  Add pickles?  Chips?  That’s a thrilling lunch full of smiles to see.

Here he is in Montreal last June.  Waiting for a sandwich, of course.

The other day I thought we’d have some tuna salad and crackers:

This is actually salmon salad.

 But in the frig were some high-fiber tortillas that needed to be used.  I’d make a wrap, I thought. Then I remembered some hot tuna sandwiches we often had as newlyweds.  Tuna salad on a hamburger bun with cheese that was then wrapped in foil and heated in the oven for 45 minutes!  (It must have been cooked to death.)  And the next thing I know, I’m making tuna quesadillas.   They’re my new go-to for a tuna sandwich.  And, well, I guess this sounds somewhat pedestrian, doesn’t it?  But once you’ve made it, I think you’ll be happy I took the time to write it up.

You go ahead and make tuna salad any way you like (or buy it at the deli), but if you need a recipe, I’ll put one at the bottom.  Meantime, here’s the story in a few pics, which goes just about how you’d think it would:

Melt 1 teaspoon butter in medium skillet over medium heat.  Add small tortilla and spread with about 1/3 cup tuna salad leaving a little space around the perimeter.  Top with some sliced cheddar cheese. ( I tore one slice in half.)  Top with another tortilla.

Let the quesadilla cook a couple of minutes or until quite toasty; carefully turn and cook the other side until golden.  Remove to a cutting board and gently slice in half and in half again using a serrated knife.

Serve with some pickles, greens, and tomatoes.  Ok, chips if you really need them.

Tuna Salad:

  • 1 6-7 ounce can tuna, drained, and broken up with a fork
  • 1 boiled egg, peeled and chopped (I do this in the microwave sometimes; see below*)
  • 1-2 tablespoons mayonnaise (to taste)
  • 1/2 teaspoon Dijon-style mustard, optional
  • 1/4 teaspoon Prepared horseradish, optional
  • 1 tablespoon minced onion
  • 3 tablespoons each:    minced celery and minced dill pickles
  • Pinch each:  kosher salt, fresh-ground pepper, and dried dill
  • Pinch crushed red pepper (optional)

. In a medium bowl, mix all ingredients together with a table fork.  Stir well.  Taste and adjust seasonings.  Add a bit more mayo or a drizzle of olive oil if you like your salad more moist. 

*To make a “boiled” egg in the microwave: 

Grease or “Pam” a deep cereal orsoup bowl and crack an egg into it.  With a sharp knife, pierce the yolk once and the white several times to help avoid eggsplosions.  (Couldn’t resist that.)  Cover tightly with plastic wrap (or a firmly fitting second bowl or dinner plate if you’re brave) and cook on high about  a minute.  Using  pot holder or mitts (this is hot), remove the bowl from the microwave and let sit a minute or so before unwrapping.  Tip the egg out of the bowl onto a cutting board and let cool another minute or so before chopping.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

two-dog kitchen and around the ‘hood

Pumpkin-Chocolate Chip Bread for the Choir:
 

 Working on updating the Italian Beef photographs for an old post….and had to make Italian Beef (ah…)  Gotta love Chicago food.  No matter what, brown food doesn’t photograph well:

  
One of the last bouquets from my yard for the year:

 She’s writing again…..

  Late neighborhood hydrangeas:

 ^^^
Goodreads Book Giveaway

Keeping the Feast by Milton Brasher-Cunningham

Keeping the Feast

by Milton Brasher-Cunningham

Being released October 01 2012
Giveaway ends in 4 days (October 01, 2012)
3 copies available, 44 people requesting

giveaway details »

Enter to win 

Sing a new song,
Alyce

50 Women Game-Changers – # 45 – Diana Kennedy- Fresh Salsa Mexicana from Jerez

Wake up and smell the salsa.
This is not salsa made in New York City.
Nor in San Antonio.
This salsa is made in your house. On your cutting board. 
And not in your Cuisinart.

Plant your gardens and sharpen your knives.
This salsa is worth the time it takes to  grow the ingredients and make it by hand.  But you can make it in its glorious Mexican-flag colors this weekend in honor of Cinco de Mayo if you’d like!

If you’ve not been part of this journey thus far, welcome to my addition to a great group of food bloggers who are, week by week, cooking dishes from the 50 Women Game-Changers in Food from Gourmet Live.  This Friday we feature Mexican chef, teacher, and cookbook author, Diana Kennedy, a Brit (b. 1923)  who ended up in Mexico in love with Mexican food for more than fifty years.  Intent on sharing her passion, Kennedy wrote many cookbooks, (I count about twenty, though some are in English and some in Spanish.) but has remained most intent on passing on information about the culture of ingredients, agriculture,  and cuisine all over the country.
“I’m a very active person,” she said. “I want to spend the rest of my days doing what I know best and that’s identifying what people are using in the culture.”   Read more
Want to check out a recent interview?   Read a  2011 interview with 88 year-old Diana Kennedy here.
But let’s get to the good stuff.  How do you make this salsa?  And what’s it good for?
fresh salsa mexicana from jerez 
  1. 1 poblano chile—stems, seeds, and veins removed and flesh finely chopped
  2. 1 red jalapeño chile—stems, seeds, and veins removed and flesh finely chopped
  3. 2 yellow chiles—stems, seeds and veins removed and flesh finely chopped  *
  4. 2 serrano chiles, finely chopped
  5. 3 tablespoons finely chopped white onion
  6. 1 ripe medium tomato (about 4 ounces), finely chopped
  7. 1/2 cup water
  8. 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
  9. 1/2 teaspoon crumbled dried oregano
  10. Salt
Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl; season with salt to taste. Set aside to macerate for about 1 hour.
*Not wanting an overly-hot salsa, I substituted red  bell pepper for these chiles.  My salsa was quite mild.  For a hotter salsa, try adding first one and then another yellow chile.

Recipe courtesy FOOD & WINE.

This salsa was really tasty with eggs, and while I’m not a chip-eater, I did try it with some tortilla chips and would have eaten more if I weren’t saving some for a Friday night movie.   I think it would make a great veggie dip; I’m always looking for vegetable-based dips.  You could ladle this sauce over simple greens or plain steamed vegetables.  I thought I’d try it with some plain grilled chicken and then in a chicken taco salad over the weekend.  My guess is it won’t keep more than a couple of days, but who would want it to?

I just loved the colors and intrinsic beauty of the ingredients and kept taking photographs of the greens and the reds…. 

And just to tease you:
Eggs traded for cookies with a St. Paul pianist who has a backyard full of chickens.

Please take some time and visit more of our great food bloggers:

Val – More Than Burnt Toast, Taryn – Have Kitchen Will Feed, Susan – The Spice Garden
Heather – girlichef, Miranda – Mangoes and Chutney, Amrita – Beetles Kitchen Escapades
Mary – One Perfect Bite, Sue – The View from Great Island, Barbara – Movable Feasts
Linda A – There and Back Again, Nancy – Picadillo, Mireya – My Healthy Eating Habits
Veronica – My Catholic Kitchen, Annie – Most Lovely Things, Jeanette – Healthy Living
Claudia – Journey of an Italian Cook, Alyce – More Time at the Table
Kathy – Bakeaway with Me, Martha – Simple Nourished Living, Jill – Saucy Cooks
Sara – Everything in the Kitchen Sink

If you liked this, you might like Boiled Eggs on English Muffins with Asparagus and Cheese Sauce on my Dinner Place  blog:

Cooking for One – It’s Fun!

 Sing a new song,
Alyce