It's no secret that here at the Easy Does It homestead, I tend to make easy meals that can be prepared rather quickly using few ingredients. This recipe is no exception - it includes shortcuts such as using Rotel and pre-grated cheese to save time. With that said, if you have a little extra time, feel free to grate your own cheese and dice up some fresh tomatoes, chile peppers, and onions!

Ingredients:
3 chicken breasts
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can Rotel, partially drained
1 8 oz. bag of shredded Mexican cheese
Cooking spray
8 taco-size flour tortillas

Directions:
Cut chicken breasts into chunks, add to pot of cold water and bring to an easy boil for about 15 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. (If it floats your boat, you can add diced onion or spices to the water to flavor the chicken as it cooks but, honestly, most of the time, I skip it...) Let chicken stand until it's cool enough to work with and then shred with two forks. Mix in the black beans and Rotel.

Heat skillet over medium high heat. Spray with cooking spray.

Top a tortilla with a handful of cheese, a big handful of the chicken mixture, then another handful of cheese and finally another tortilla. Place in skillet and cook for roughly one minute or until tortilla is crisp and lightly browned. Gently flip and cook for about a minute on the other side.  Repeat with remaining tortillas, adjusting time and temperature as necessary to achieve desired crispiness. Use a pizza cutter to cut each quesadilla into six triangles.

Serve with sour cream, guacamole, and/or pico de gallo.

It seems like every Southern family has a recipe for chicken spaghetti. My own family didn't -- darned Northern parents! -- but luckily my husband's family does. Well, technically, each of his sisters and his mom have a different recipe for chicken spaghetti. So I took what I liked from each of their recipes and left out what I didn't. Here's how we eat it at our house:


Ingredients
3 chicken breasts (boiled and shredded)
1 package dry spaghetti, broken in half
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of chicken soup
2 cups grated cheddar (one cup for mixing in, one for topping)
1 can Rotel
1 teaspoon Lawry's Seasoned Salt
Dash of cayenne pepper
Salt and pepper, to taste


Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Boil chicken breasts and shred (reserve water). Boil spaghetti in reserved water for just less than the time indicated on package (pasta will still cook a little in the oven). When spaghetti is done, combine all ingredients in a casserole dish with the exception of the second cup of cheddar. Top with remaining cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.


Serves 4-6. Makes good leftovers.

Note: When photographing this dish, I couldn't for the life of me figure out why it looked funny. Then it hit me: I forgot to mix in the Rotel. Duh! So picture some color (not to mention flavor) mixed in there.

Over the weekend, a good friend celebrated her birthday with a potluck brunch. We enjoyed a smorgasbord of delicious food and drink including mimosas, Bloody Marys, baked French toast, truffled hashbrown casserole, breakfast pizzas, bagels and lox, and more. I brought an easy to make spinach and mushroom quiche 'cause what's a brunch without quiche, right?

Spinach and Mushroom Quiche

Ingredients
1 frozen pie crust
4 eggs
1 cup half and half
4 ounces button mushrooms, coarsely chopped
1 shallot, diced
10 ounce package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
1 tablespoon butter
3/4 cup shredded sharp cheddar
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Preheat oven to 360 degrees. Cover edges of pie crust and bake for 7-10 minutes. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a skillet over medium high heat. Add shallots and saute for a few minutes. Add mushrooms and saute a few minutes more. Remove pie crust from oven and cover bottom with half the shredded cheese. Top with spinach, shallots, mushrooms and then the remaining cheese. Beat eggs with salt, pepper, and half and half. Pour eggs over the top of the pie. Bake at 360 degrees for 50 minutes or until a toothpick or knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.

I came across this recipe a week or so ago on Real Simple and decided to give it a go. It has yet to be hubby tested and approved but the bestie and I thought it was delish! Exactly as you'd imagine: spinach and artichoke dip with pasta plus a kick. Do it!

Some time ago, the hubby decided that we should give pescatarianism a shot. For no other reason than he wanted to eat more healthy stuff and less junk and felt he needed some set guidelines to hold himself to it. Now, I love me some fish and I love me some veggies so I was 100% on board with it.

And we did pretty well. For about a week or so. But for whatever reason, I had the hardest time coming up with easy and delicious vegetarian or seafood dishes every. single. day. It felt like we were eating the same meal over and over. And, let's be honest, fish doesn't typically make for great leftovers and we're kind of a leftovers-for-lunch-the-next-day type of family. So I started throwing a little meat back in the mix. Long story short, it wasn't but a minute before we were eating meat with almost all of our meals again.

Anyway, after our failed attempt at pescatarianism, I instituted what I like to call "Meatless Mondays." As the name implies, once a week, we make an effort to eat a vegetarian dinner. (Not quite as lofty as our original goal, but it helps us to eat a bit healthier!) As such, I'm always on the lookout for tasty new vegetarian recipes. The other day I stumbled across this one for Quinoa and Black Beans:

Ingredients:
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 onion, chopped 
3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped 
1 red bell pepper, chopped
3/4 cup uncooked quinoa
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup frozen corn kernels
2 (15 ounce) cans black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Directions
1. Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the onion and garlic, and saute until lightly browned.
2. Add bell pepper and saute for a minute more.
2. Mix quinoa into the saucepan and cover with chicken broth. Season with cumin, cayenne pepper, salt, and pepper. Bring the mixture to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes.
3. Stir frozen corn into the saucepan, and continue to simmer about 5 minutes until heated through. Mix in the black beans and cilantro.

I modified it a tiny bit by adding the bell pepper and upping the amount of corn. Next time, I'll probably double the quinoa too.

Serves four.

1. Heat oven to 425 degrees
2. In large bowl, toss potatoes, onion, 2 tablespoons of oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper
3. Transfer potato mixture to rimmed baking sheet (I like to line mine in foil to make clean up a snap!) and roast until tender, 20 to 25 minutes
4. Meanwhile, heat a tablespoon of oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Season the chicken with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper and cook until browned and cooked through
5. Rinse bowl and add spinach and ¼ teaspoon salt.  Squeeze lime over the spinach
6. Add the hot chicken and the potato mixture to the spinach and toss (spinach should wilt slightly)
7. Serve with glass of chilled white wine, preferably on patio

Serves four. Makes decent leftovers (believe it or not).