birthday quesadillas

As I threatened to do, I made myself some quesadillas. These aren't that different from the surf-and-turf fajitas I made recently (April, early August). The skirt steak could've used a real sear, too, but it tasted just fine. The shrimp chunks were awesome. As before, I used red bell peppers and Korean chili peppers. Because tonight's meal was quesadillas, I added cheese in two layers. Below—cheese, veggies, surf and turf:

how colorful

Below—more cheese on top, plus some leftover chimichurri on the other side. I had no idea how well the chimichurri would play with the other elements. It's a strongly flavored steak/shrimp sauce, so it would obviously go well with the proteins, but would it meld well with the sour cream, salsa, and guacamole?

ready for folding

Below—we fire up the flame and start pan-frying. The tortilla gets folded over, and you can see I'm using Wolfgang Puck's quesadilla trick of adding mayonnaise to the tortilla to crisp it up better. It's a good trick, folks, and it worked!

slathered in mayo

See what I mean? Behold:

The results speak for themselves.

Below—I went a bit heavy with the guac, but it all worked out.

ready to eat

In my zeal, I ate a second quesadilla but didn't photograph it as it was being made. I did photograph the third quesadilla, though:

plain Jane

And by the third quesadilla, I had acquired better sauce/dollop discipline:

The salsa was a bit watery, though, so you can see the salsa's "sweat" christening the tortilla.

And adding the chimichurri? I needn't have worried. It tasted great.

I then ate my three remaining cookies, and that was that. I'm fasting all of Friday so I can feel lean and mean when I go out to do my 33K walk from Friday night to Saturday morning. Am very much looking forward to this trek.