Quesadillas with Courgette Flowers

There is a special synchronicity when many of your passions coincide. This recipe for Quesadillas with Courgette Flowers brings together my interests in travelling and experiencing different cultures, growing my own fruits and vegetables, cooking fresh tasty food straight from the garden and enjoying my backyard haven. I was reading Rick Stein’s book “The Road to Mexico” and reminiscing about my trip to Mexico, Guatemala and Belize 3 years ago, whilst sitting in my new outdoor area enjoying a home-made elderflower ale and wondering what I was going to cook. Then I saw a picture of a woman at a road-side stall cooking the most delicious looking blue corn quesadillas filled with courgette (zucchini) flowers. I looked over at my vegetable garden and there were masses of courgette flowers. I didn’t have blue corn but I did have some tortillas so after a quick harvest of ingredients from the garden I was ready to cook.

The recipe really couldn’t be simpler:

Select and prepare your vegetables – I used courgette flowers, cherry tomatoes, spring onions and some coriander the first time, but you can use whatever you have on hand. Another time I used courgettes, shallots and some chilli and capsicum along with the courgette flowers.

Saute the vegetables in a little oil until softened.

If you are using round tortillas, then you can use the same pan for the rest of the cooking. I have also used rectangular ‘wraps’ and cooked them in a sandwich press. Of course you can also do this on a barbeque plate.

Put some of the vegetable mix on half of your tortilla, sprinkle with mozzarella cheese (or any other cheese you like), and fold the tortilla in half flattening it down. Cook in the pan until the tortilla is browned then flip to cook the other side.

Enjoy as a snack or serve with a salad.

Quesadilla cooked in a pan:

A quesadilla wrap cooked in a sandwich press: