A quesadilla is a flour tortilla, filled with savory ingredients. You can fill a tortilla with lots of different fillings the same way you would choose lots of different fillings for a sandwich.

Cheese is very often one of the main ingredients. I’m using leftover Monterey Jack shredded cheese with scallions, black olives and sun-dried tomatoes.

Buy the 8 inch flour tortillas. The 12 inch are just too big to handle.

Lay one flour tortilla in a non-stick pan and top with 1/3 cup of cheese.

Wash one scallion (green onion). Cut off the hairy bit on the end. Cut the scallion into quarter-inch slices and sprinkle on the tortilla.

Chop the black olives and sprinkle on top of the scallions

Dice three sun-dried tomatoes and sprinkle them on top of the scallions.

Now sprinkle on the remaining 1/3 cup of cheese

And top with the second tortilla.

Set the pan on the stove top and turn the heat onto medium.  (A brush of butter or oil on the tortilla does give it a nicely browned and crispy finish but, on very rare occasions, I do like to try and save a calorie or two!)

After about 1.5 minutes the tortilla should be lightly browned and the cheese is starting to melt. Flip the quesadilla over with a spatula.

Cook for about another minute on the flip side. Peek inside the quesadilla to make sure the cheese is all melted before removing it from the pan. You may need another minute or so. Slide the quesadilla out of the pan and onto a cutting board.

With a large kitchen knife cut the quesadilla into six slices.

Serve this quesadilla with some salad and you’ve got yourself a perfect lunch or light supper!

Enjoy!

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There are lots of different things you can make for dinner with leftover (cooked) chicken. My favorite, particularly on a cold night, is a hot bowl of Chicken Noodle Soup. This is one of those soups for which you can find really complicated, time-consuming recipes or - just use this quick version for beginners!

All of the ingredients you will need for this recipe are pretty standard food items:

• 2 teaspoons of butter
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 1 carrot
• 1 stalk of celery
• 4-6 cups of chicken broth
• 1 cup of noodles
• 1 1/2 cups of chicken, cooked and shredded
• Salt and Pepper, to taste

Broth is the strained liquid left from cooking vegetables, meat, or fish in water. It is often used as a synonym for bullion.

Stock is basically the same thing but cooked more slowly and has a more intense flavor than broth.

Bullion cubes or granules are compressed stock that needs to be dissolved before using.

For the broth, I’m using a product called “Better than Bullion.” It needs to get dissolved in hot water before adding it to the soup. A can or box of chicken broth or bullion cubes or granules could be used here as well.

My grocery store sometimes has what they call a “Soup Green Mix”. They bundle together everything you might need to make soup.

This mix included a turnip, an onion, a potato, 3 stalks of celery, 1 GIANT carrot, 1 leek, 1 parsnip, some dill and some parsley.

If you like all the vegetables in one of these “starter packs”, great! But I prefer to pick out my own vegetables.

To make startcooking.com's Chicken Noodle Soup, start by chopping the onion, and slicing the carrot and celery.

Melt the butter in a big pot, on medium-high heat, and add the onions, carrots and celery.

Cook these three vegetables until lightly browned - about 5 minutes.

Add the chicken broth and bring the pot to a boil.

Turn the soup down to simmer.

Cover the pot and let the soup cook for about 10-15 minutes.

While the soup is cooking, chop the parsley and shred the chicken by just pulling it apart with your fingers. You could cut it into chunks but shredding it gives the soup a nice homemade texture.

(You can buy a roasted chicken at the grocery store or roast one yourself. Click here to review how to carve a chicken.)

Add the noodles to the pot and simmer the soup, uncovered, until the noodles are tender. The amount of time will depend on what size noodle you added to the soup. Check the label on the noodle package for cooking times.

Taste the soup to see if it needs any salt and pepper. (Different chicken broth brands have different levels of salt in them, so a taste test is essential to determine how much salt your soup needs.)

Add the shredded chicken and simmer until chicken is warm.

Mix the parsley in the soup or use it to garnish the top.

Dinner’s ready!

P.S.: If you're a soup lover, you'll probably enjoy our French onion soup recipe too!

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Sandwiches can be as exotic as you like, with all sorts of fancy ingredients. But, there is nothing quite as heart-warming as a classic “BLT.”

Today I’m going to show you how to make a Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato sandwich, better know as the BLT!

We've already discussed how to cook bacon in the microwave.

We have also solved the mystery of how to actually wash your own lettuce!

We still need to slice a tomato. A really sharp kitchen knife or a serrated edge knife will cut the tomato beautifully. (Serrated edge knives are the ones with the jagged edge.)

Be sure to always use a sawing motion or you may end up squishing the tomato!

Then we’ll add all of this to your favorite bread, which of course should be toasted. A dollop of mayonnaise adds the finishing touch to a perfect BLT!

Spread each slice with about 1 tablespoon of mayonnaise. This is not a sandwich you should be eating if you are counting calories!

Add the lettuce, the bacon and the sliced tomato. (It doesn’t really matter what order you follow.)

All of the amounts are adjustable to your taste. And that’s all there is to a BLT!

To slice the sandwich, (optional) use a serrated-edge bread knife , with a sawing motion (as usual with this knife).

Enjoy!

PS. Did you know that sandwiches are named after an actual person, (you guessed it) the English Earl of Sandwich? Apparently, the Earl of Sandwich had an obsession for gambling. Because he didn't want to be disturbed long enough to eat a big meal, slices of bread with various fillings were brought to him at the gaming table.

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