Pizzadillas

A long time ago, I was in a girl scout troop. After the girl scout troop disbanded in middle school, some of us would still meet up once a year to catch up and see how life was. On one such occasion, we went to TGI Fridays for dinner. It was there that a delicious appetizer caught my eye. The pizzadilla. Instead of a traditionally Mexican flavored quesadilla, they had brought forth pepperoni and Italian cheeses to be grilled between two tortillas. I gave it a try and was delighted in how delicious it tasted.

Fast forward to being an adult and having complete control over what we eat on a regular basis. The memory of a pizzadilla would flit in and out of my brain throughout the years, but never at a time that I was menu planning, at the store, or even remotely near the position to make it happen. Instead of writing it down to make sure it happened sooner rather than later, I would let it flit back out, lost in the depths of my mind until it made it's tantalizing presence known once again. This week as we searched for fun ways to enjoy Mattie's two week hiatus between semesters, sandwiched between a date night for us and going to bed early came the concept of having a fun movie night with the kids. We tossed around the idea of having pizza (which we love) and then, there it was, the memory at the perfect time, the pizzadilla! It was awesome, delicious, amazing, drool worthy, everything I had hoped it would be...and more. The concept is simple enough: Italian cheese blend, chopped up pepperoni, place between two tortillas, heat, cut, enjoy. I do have a couple of tips though. We used these tortillas that you cook at home:

We get them at HEB and they are perfectly light and chewy to make "fun, non-Mexican quesadillas". Some tortillas taste too much like Mexican food and would have distracted from this. Also, the texture made the quesadilla taste more like a pizza roll from Double Daves or Gumby's which equaled extra yumminess.

I would make sure your pepperoni is separated for easy spreading around the tortilla. Also, don't chop it smaller than fourths. It needs the extra meatiness of larger bits.

Serve with marinara sauce for dipping. It's good and fun, plus you will get extra vitamins and nutrients from the tomato based sauce.

We contemplated adding other "toppings" into our pizzadilla. I think that small, slightly sauteed or roasted mushrooms would be good or thinly sliced and slightly cooked onion would be ok. However, I wouldn't do much more than that and frankly, these are so good on their own that the extra work isn't really necessary.

We served these with a salad and were plenty full. The girls gobbled them up which I was slightly surprised by, they are pretty plain when it comes to quesadillas. We will definitely be adding these into our "treat meal" rotations more often.