Tomorrow is Election Day and I am restless. I will get up really early to go out to vote. I come from a political family, my father was a French senator for 18 years, so voting was never something I thought was optional. I became a American Citizen to be able to vote. My theory was that if I was paying taxes I needed to vote. In the USA since 1987, a citizen since 1995, this is the fourth presidential election I am able to participate in and by far the most exciting!
As we are hopefully heading to a new era I decided that it was appropriate to clean up my freezer of a few things that had been in there for too long. I found a container of plain cooked back beans and four pieces of Sujuk, a fragrant Turkish sausage. In the back of the fridge there was a bag of Masa Harina that I have been ignoring for to long, a piece of mozzarella that needed to be eaten and a simple salad. Voilà! my menu tonight:
Quick Sujuk Black Bean Soup
All Home Made Cheese Quesadillas
Simple Salad
Quick Sujuk Black Bean Soup
(for 2)
1 small onion diced
5 thick slices of Sujuk sausage
2 cups of cooked beans
1 teaspoon of ground cumin
salt, pepper or hot sauce to taste.
In a skillet sauté the onion and the Sujuk. Add the cooked beans & the cumin.
Add 1 1/2 cup of water -more or less depending how thick you like your soup
Stir well, taste and spice to taste.
All Home Made Cheese Quesadillas
Making your own tortillas is very satisfying and easy. Something really fun to make with your kids or grand kids. Usually the instructions on the package are pretty good, but see pictures above for the process without tortilla maker or comal.
For 8 tortillas
1 cup of instant yellow corn masa flour
3/4 cup of water
a pinch of salt
a few slices of mozzarella cheese
Mix all ingredients thoroughly, except the cheese, for about 2 minutes to form a soft dough. If dough is too dry add a little water , if too soft a little flour.
Divide dough into 8 pieces and form balls. Place dough between two sheets of plastic and flatten it with a spatula if like me you don’t have a tortilla maker. Carefully peel off from plastic. I actually use only one sheet of plastic on top and let the bottom be on the (clean) kitchen counter. I prefer to keep my tortillas at about 2/8 of an inch, which is thicker than the commercial one, but more hearty and rustic.
Warm up a cast iron skillet to medium heat cook tortilla about 50 seconds, turn and cook the other side.
Save the cooked tortillas in a cloth napkin to keep them soft and warm. You can eat them that way or make quesadillas to accompany your soup.
Return tortilla to the skillet place mozzarella in the center cover with another tortilla until the cheese is melted.
Serve the tortillas with the Sujuk black bean soup. Optional garnish of thinly cut scallions or a few leaves of cilantro can go on top of your soup. Serve with my simple salad!
Please Vote & Bon Appetit!
