Quesadilla with Cilantro Pesto

Cilantro pesto (or any herb or greens pesto) is really easy to make. Just one bunch of cilantro, a clove of garlic, some olive oil and a soft nut. Soft nut? Not a hard woody nut like an almond. Which is funny because I actually use almonds in the below recipe haha! It just doesn't grind up as smoothly and leaves some chunks in the pesto. You don't need expensive pine nuts though, pecans or walnuts work fabulously. And even almonds will cut it in a pinch ;)

I like to add this pesto to a quesadilla to take it from ho-hum, to YUM.

To roast the nuts (which I think adds a better flavor than un-roasted) set your oven to a high broil, spray the nuts with olive oil and pop them in the oven. Watch for them to darken, but no darker than this or they are burned! I pushed it a little...

Drain and dry them on a paper towel. They will stay quite hot, so watch your fingers.

I bet you could use a blender for this, but I love my mini food processor! It reduces nuts to smithereens in seconds, which is what you want here. Why did I make so many if I only need a tablespoon? Because these are killer over oatmeal. Add a tablespoon of maple syrup (the real stuff is best) and a tablespoon of these almonds. So so good.

Everything in the processor! You can see the small clove of garlic in here, I just cut it in half. No need to pre-chop!

A couple of pulses later and ta-da, pesto.

Don't lay it on too thick or it will make the quesadilla soft and hard to eat, also take over every other flavor! This amount of pesto will make a few quesadillas. I made two smaller enchilada tortilla sized ones and had enough left over for about 1 1/2 more. 

Another thing. I love tomatoes on grilled cheeses and quesadillas, but I do not like the face melting pockets of terror juice they create. You can avoid these by pinching the seeds out of the slices, leaving the flesh. Tomato seeds are delicious and I advocate leaving them in for anything else, but here they've got to go.

Grilled and ready to be devoured!