When in doubt, let there be FOOD!!!

As many of you know, I have a love for food, wine, and most of all COOKING whenever time permits. Although work, school, and the house and kids often keep from REALLY creating I try to find as much time as possible to COOK, even the smallest of meals.
With age I have come to despise fast food (ME? Yes, scary eh!!!), and even dining out at every day restaurants. Why? Because I feel between my cooking, and my husband’s grilling we can make BETTER food, that is better for us and our family’s health.

Today was an off day for running, so the girls and I went to their annual appointments, ran a couple errands, and came home to quietly relax and watch “Tangled.” This is one of our family favorites so we snuggled in quickly.

Sometimes, ~~normally~~ I fall asleep while lying on the couch. We joking call it the “couch of death” because it sucks the life out of you in a matter of minutes. Yet I didn’t fall asleep this time…and found myself missing my hubby quite terrible when the Lantern scene came on…

As sappy as it sounds, well, this is how I feel about my husband. He’s truly opened my eyes up to so many things in life I once kept my eyes and heart closed off to see.

So with teary eyes and a heavy heart I climbed the stairs to my kitchen to COOK, because cooking makes everything better…

The girls requested quesadilla’s, so I got the chicken and steak marinating, and started prepping the garlic, mushrooms, and onions. Of course my girls all requested different ingredients, but I didn’t mind…cooking is my other release besides running.

I heated up two pans, one non-stick and one stainless steel.

To the stainless steel pan I added my garlic, onions, and mushrooms and let saute’ until the onions were translucent…

make sure not to salt until the mushrooms start to brown!

Did I mention it already smelled amazing in my house at this point? YUM!!! I added salt, pepper, and cilantro flakes and let simmer.

Ready!!

After the chicken/steak is done marinating (I added cumin, smoked paprika, chili powder, salt, pepper and cilantro with some hot sauce) cook one at a time in the non-stick pan. Mind you, this can be done as the same time as the veggies.

After you cook off the chicken, remove from the pan but DON’T wash it out. Simple reheat it and add in the steak! Made for an amazing flavor!!!!

Cook until your desired temperature. I am a medium rare fan, so cooked it just a few minutes longer than the picture until the outside was brown, and inside was still tender. YUM!

Next it’s time to start assembling and cooking your quesadillas. Clean out your non-stick pan unless you have 2!
Spray the pan with light cooking spray, and add just a touch of extra virgin olive oil and place one flour tortilla in the pan. Add desired ingredients! Flip once, when light golden brown and wait another 5 minutes or so before removing from the pan.