Vegan Quesadillas

One of my new year's goals was to blog more. So far I'm not doing so good on that one. So, in an effort to jumpstart that goal, I've decided to do some blogging on foods I've discovered since becoming a vegan. I haven't totally worked out how I'll do it - whether or not I'll only discuss new recipes or if I'll discuss some I've already tried and liked. Most likely it'll be a little bit of both, seeing as how I've made roughly 100 new recipes in the last year and it'd be a shame not to discuss some of them. :)

Anyway, to today's new discovery . . . Refried Beans and Salsa Quesadillas.

Quesadillas was one of the few Mexican food dishes that I liked but I haven't had any since I became a vegan. Then a few weeks ago I bought a new cookbook (1000 Vegan Recipes by Robin Robertson) and it had several recipes for vegan quesadillas. The Refried Beans and Salsa Quesadillas looked to be the least complicated with the least amount of ingredients and the least amount of cooking steps so it's the one I picked.

I should mention that I somehow missed the "Refried" portion of the recipe name, not that it really matters since "refried" beans aren't a listed ingredient.

Anyway, I did a mental check of the list of ingredients and the only item I wasn't sure of was the salsa. There's a recipe for homemade salsa but I didn't have all the ingredients and it would be more work so I was going with store-bought salsa. I looked everywhere and didn't find it. So it was on my list when I went to the grocery store today. Since the list was in my head, it was the one thing I forgot to pick up at the store so I decided to make up my own recipe for salsa and I was digging through my pantry when I found a bottle of salsa in the back. I figured I was good. Right?

I have so many variations of beans in my pantry it's not funny. But do I have the pinto beans that the recipe calls for? Uh, no! So I substituted red kidney beans (because I had multiple cans of it) for the pinto beans.

Bottom line, I loved this dish. It was fast. It was easy (the hardest thing was mashing the beans!). It was delicious. Pinto beans might give it a different taste or texture (maybe?) but I can't imagine liking it any better than I did.

I give it two spoons up!