Jack Quesadillas with Cranberry Salsa/ Banana Bread

January 31st, 2010

It's hard to believe that today is the last day of the month.  Which means that Jarrod and I have stuck with our diet and exercise for 25 days!  Woohoo!  Yesterday, I went to the gym for an hour and 15 minutes in the morning, and another half hour in the afternoon with Jarrod.  I took the day off today.  It is Sunday afterall ;).

Friday night, I made the most delicious Quesadillas with Cranberry Salsa.  I even was able to cut out more calories by finding some tortillas that only have 71 calories and 12g of fiber... they are called...Ole Extreme Wellness Tortillas, I've posted a link to their website so you can recognize them in the store:

http://www.olemexicanfoods.com/OLEmenuTortillas.htm

They taste very fresh and delicious!  I got the recipe from my new favorite website http://www.cookinglight.com/  I caved and got a subscription for their magazine too.  Yum Yum!  I was on the food network site (used to be my favorite), and the recipes I was looking at didn't have any nutritional information!  Even the "healthy" ones.  I was disappointed.  I could always figure it out with my Lose It app though :).  But this one would be perfect for after Thanksgiving for all of the leftover Turkey!  Or even chicken leftovers!  So Delicious!  I tried the salsa with baked tostitos too, very good!

Jack Quesadillas with Cranberry Salsa

Salsa:
1 cup whole berry cranberry sauce (i used the jelly kind, just as good)
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
2 tablespoons chopped green onions
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 anjou pear, cored and finely diced
1 jalepeno pepper, seeded and minced (more or less depending on how you like spice!)

Quesadillas:
cooking spray
1/4 cup green onion
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded monterey jack cheese with jalepeno peppers
8 (8 inch) flour tortillas
2 cups chopped cooked turkey
1/2 cup fat free sour cream

To prepare salsa, combine first 7 ingredients. Cover and chill.

To prepare quesadillas, heat a large nonstick skillet over medium high heat.  Coat pan with cooking spray.  Add 1/4 cup sliced onions to pan; saute 3 minutes or until tender.  Remove onions from pan; reduce heat to medium.  Sprinkle 2 tablesppons cheese over each of 4 tortillas.  Top each cheese-covered tortilla with one fourth of onions, 1/2 cup turkey, 2 tbsp cheese, and 1 tortilla.

Recoat pan with cooking spray.  Add 1 quesadilla to pan; cook 2 minutes on each side or until lightly browned and cheese melts.  Repeat with remaining quesadillas.  Cut each quesadilla into 6 wedges.  Serve with cranberry salsa and sour cream.

(I used our George Foreman Grill which has Quesadilla Maker inserts, so easy and quick!)

Yield:  8 servings (serving size - 3 wedges, about 1/4 cup salsa, and 1 tbsp sour cream) 
Calories: 356... (but I'm not sure how they're figuring the tortillas...?).  When I did the calculations using the tortillas that I bought, and I used a little less turkey, I figured they were about 200 calories a serving...)

Delicious either way!

Classic Banana Bread
 (I made this yummy recipe this afternoon with the ripened bananas we had left)- this one is also from http://www.cookinglight.com/ .

2 cups all purpose flur
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, softenened
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe banana (about 3 bananas)
1/3 cup plain low fat yogurt (i used french vanilla because that's what I had)
1 teaspoon vanilla
cooking spray

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together flour, baking soda and salt with a whisk in a bowl.

Place sugar and butter in a large bowl and beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended (about 1 minute).  Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.  Add banana, yogurt, and vanilla; beat until blended.  Add flour mixture; beat at low speed just until moist.  Spoon batter into a loaf pan coated with cooking spray.  Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour (mine took about 1 hour and 15 minutes, but my oven wasn't preheated, oopsy- what can I say, I'm not a baker!)- You'll know its done when the toothpick comes out clean.  Cool 10 minutes in pan and then cool on a wire rack. 

Yield: 1 loaf, 14 servings (serving: 1 slice)

Calories: 187

The bread came out so moist!  I thought I'd stick to the recipe as is for right now to see if it was a good one, might make some healthy suggestions to it next time I make it (like splenda for instance).

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