Young Epicureans Make Chicken Quesadillas

And they did it completely from scratch! Tortillas, salsa and all. During this class everyone seemed a good bit more relaxed. Some arrived early and got started grating cheese before moving on to mixing dough for their tortillas. It took a while to roll those tortillas to appropriate sizes and thicknesses, but everyone was successful. The paper thin ones, like David's, turned out the best. You could literally see through his uncooked tortillas.

It seems that David, whose mom drives him all the way from Yarmouth for this class, has some mad tortilla-rolling skillz—unlike my not-so-focused tortilla-photographing skillz. You'll have to trust me that this was by far our most gorgeous tortilla. Large, round, thin, and quite clearly focused in person. (Maybe it's the camera?) That cutting board is 12 inches wide, just to give you an idea of how hard he worked a little 2-inch ball of dough.

While the dough was "resting," before we rolled and cooked the tortillas we made fresh salsa.

I was overjoyed to see all of them using all the ingredients in the recipe—even the scarier ones like jalapeno peppers and cilantro. Some even bravely tasted the raw jalapenos. The results of that little experiment were, let's just say, mixed. The cilantro we had, incidentally, was gorgeous and almost intoxicatingly aromatic. It filled the kitchen with its unique scent while we cooked. Some of the kids even took a bunch home, which pleased me to no end.

Their sauté skills are improving. This week we sautéed chicken, red bell peppers, onions, garlic, and tomatoes for the quesadilla fillings and many of the kids are beginning to get the hang of flipping their ingredients in the pan to mix without using a spoon.

That's Emily demonstrating her two-handed technique in the first picture. Those pans are heavy and Emily may be small, but she's mighty! In the second picture you can see Gabriella (in the middle) frying her tortilla on a dry sauté pan.

After the vegetables and chicken were cooked it was time to add a little olive oil, stack the quesadillas (tortilla, a few tablespoons of cheddar and Monterey jack cheeses, chicken, vegetables, and the final tortilla) and pan fry on both sides. Then onto a plate and time to add the garnish (salsa, reduced-fat sour cream, and avocado).

Behold the final product:

Spectacularly unique and tasty! Everyone ate some, some ate everything, and others took home about half of what they made in our new and fancy Chinese takeout containers. A great time was had by all! Next week we'll work on our recipe reading, measuring, and dish washing skills (I'm not sure, but it may have been a shock to find out that there are no pot-scrubbing gremlins living inside the Highfield dishwasher)….

A special thanks to Nichole Litchfield for volunteering her Friday night after a long day of landscaping to help us out.

Have a great week everyone!!