Crispy Chicken Quesadilla

Recently, a friend of mine got me hooked on Pinterest, and poof...there went several hours. One of the things I pinned recently was a recipe that looked delicious and consisted of ingredients I already had in my fridge. Those are the best kinds of recipes, in my opinion. I didn't change much, and I found the original recipe here.

Ingredients:
1 cup chicken, cooked and shredded
1 cup cooked rice
1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed
2-3 chopped green onions
1/2 green pepper, chopped
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
2 tsp lime juice
1/2 Tlbs chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp garlic powder
shredded Monterey Jack
shredded cheddar
white corn tortillas

Mix the rice, chili powder, cumin, and garlic powder together (Alternatively, cook the rice with the spices). Stir in the remainder of the ingredients, except the cheese. Warm up a cast iron skillet over medium or medium low heat. Spray one of the tortillas with olive oil and put it oil side down in the pan. Sprinkle some of the Monterey Jack on the tortilla (not too much or it will melt out the sides). Spoon the rice/chicken mixture on the tortilla out to about 1/2 an inch from the edges all the way around. Then sprinkle a small amount of cheddar on top, and put the other tortilla on top. Let it cook for a couple of minutes, until it is toasted, then spray the top tortilla with olive oil, flip the entire thing over and toast the other side. Cut and serve.

A note here...In the original recipe, she rolled a larger tortilla into a burrito style shape and toasted it closed. When I did that, everything fell out. And then I ran out of whole wheat tortillas, which is what I usually use. However, I had some white corn tortillas left over from the green enchiladas last week, so I used those instead and it turned out pretty good. To flip them without spilling out all the ingredients, I lifted the quesadilla off the pan and onto a small plate, then flipped another small plate over and put it on top, then flipped the entire thing, took the top plate off, and used the spatula to put the whole thing back on the pan. No mess. In the original recipe, she used garlic salt and a fresh lime, but I didn't have either one of those. I think I would add corn next time, just because I like it, but this is pretty good as is. This recipe makes a fairly large amount, about 3 cups of mixture total, but it would be really easy to cut it down. In the original recipe, she said she served 6 people.

Rating 5/5
Why? This is super easy to make, and I almost always have all of these ingredients on hand. I like that it will make a relatively large amount that will sit in the fridge for several days and I can use when I want a quick snack.