Quesadillas became a left-over user-upper. We resort to a particular meal when we feel we are in need of greens; chicken salad, which is actually better than it sounds, and usually ends up with left over chicken strips. These usually end up in a dry sandwich sometime in the next few days. But then I found a quesadilla recipe. It may seem silly to use a recipe as I have the feeling that quesadillas are like an Italian’s pizza: just throw in (on) whatever you have laying about in Tupperware in the fridge and bake. But I’m not the kind of cook to experiment. Mostly because I seem to lack the basic skills that most people instinctively know about cooking, like when a pan is hot enough to use, or hwo to keep things from sticking to a non-stick pan. Which means I require detailed instruction and description.
The first time it went pretty well. I was worried about flipping the stuffed tortillas in the frying pan. So I devised this ingenious method. I insert the skinny plastic blue IKEA ‘flipper’ from our ‘starter’ pack under the bottom tortilla. This won’t scratch the ‘non-stick’ yet increasingly sticking surface. Then, here comes the ingenious part, I then press the wider metal flipper on the top tortilla, both handles pointing in the same direction. Then, I take a very deep breath, sorta count to three (slightly bopping the quesadilla with each count) and... then.......FLIP!!
The first time it worked perfectly and I was incredibly proud of myself. Usually when I attempt these kind of cooking experiments it ends in disaster, meaning ingredient detritus everywhere, or a fairly serious burn, almost always accompanied by Pete giving me that kind of exasperated and amused, ‘baabee’ as in what were you thinking, aren’t your attempts at cooking cute?
It hasn’t really worked since. Ever since the first batch, every subsequent flip is a little bit worse. This last batch lost the majority of its filling at every flip (the last one actually spitting its contents at Pete) and caused me to actually give a little upset, hopping, twitching ‘come on!!!’ fit. I haven’t employed ‘the twitch’ since before I left home for University. It is a patented move I employed whenever I didn’t want to do something my parents wanted or was incredibly upset because I did want to do something and they didn’t. It involves a synchronized twitch of both arm and leg, although usually on just one side. Advanced twitching involves both right and left and a little hop. This was advanced twitching.
‘Why can’t you just work!?’ was directed toward the blue flipper. It seems that this batch of quesadillas was its last straw. It refused to keep its rigid, lazy L shape and would bend backwards straight and then backwards L shape with the weight of the loaded tortilla. Almost as if it were saying (in the sweetest southern drawl), ‘Darling, you don’t seem to understand. I work alone. I have never been more insulted and I will not put up with it anymore.’ And then taking a leaf out of the RMT union’s playbook, ‘I am on strike.’
That’s fine. FINE. It was washed, dried, put away in the drawer and that’s where it will stay while it thinks about the value of striking in a world (kitchen) in which it was almost exclusively used daily. Time to bring in the scabs. Courtesy of T.K. Maxx household section. Competition is good for the kitchen utensil soul.
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