Quesadillas with cassava cheese and smokey pepper sauce

This is what I was going to post for this week' Hive plant based cooking challenge I didn't make it on time. I would like to share anyway.

I chose Cassava to make into a savory item, along with smokey peppers often used in Mexico. I wanted to make my own flour tortillas but I had a mishap that stole some precious time from me. Marc was waiting patiently for lunch before we had to head to see his mother who had spent 3 weeks in the hospital.

I ran across the street for ready made tortillas after the mishap. The mishap happened very fast. I had pepper sauce in a jar unfinished, sitting on the counter. I had cooked the peppers the day before along with the cassava. While finishing the pepper sauce I climbed on a chair to get oregano from the top cupboard. I accidently knocked over a glass jar of coriander seeds which fell knocking over my pepper sauce. I managed to save a third of it. The sauce was all over the counter dripping down the cupboards and on to the floor where the jar of coriander had shattered. There was glass, coriander seeds and sauce all over the kitchen. As I stepped off the chair, I slipped on the sauce and became part of what looked like a crime scene. Marc said he wished he could have had the whole thing on video.

After that I fixed what remained of the sauce. It started with two dried peppers used quite a lot in Mexico. The peppers were Guajillo and arbol.

I remove the seeds resisting the urge to rub my eyes. The arbol are the hot ones the other is more about the flavor.

After removing the seeds, add them to a medium hot pan and toast. Be careful not to burn. This process kind of hurts when you do it indoors. If you do these things indoors you'll understand what I am talking about.
After toasting the peppers, soak them in water. After several hours, or the next day, blend the peppers with water or the water from the soaked peppers.

I had boiled the cassava the same day as the peppers.

Cassava is fairly new to me since I grew up in Canada starting when it was not as multicultural as it is now.

I had cooked cassava by boiling for a while to soften like potatoes.

I was making a plant based cheese for these quesadillas. I added boil carrots to give a yellowish tint.

Cassava cheese sauce
2 cassava
1 carrot
1/2 onion chopped
4 cloves garlic minced
1 cup plant milk
4 tablespoons nutritional yeast
3 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 teaspoon garlic
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon cayenne
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
Salt to taste

Saute onions and garlic. Add cider vinegar and nutritional yeast. Add blended cassava and carrots with plant milk. Add water if necessary then adjust seasonings.

After the crime scene was cleaned up, I finished the pepper sauce by blending it with two tablespoons tomato paste, a teaspoon of chipotle pepper from a can, a pinch of toasted cumin, a pinch of toasted coriander, a squeeze of lime, a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar, a tablespoon of cider vinegar and a tablespoon of cane sugar, a pinch of oregano, and previously pan fried onion and garlic. I reheated it and simmered to cook ingredients together.

The cheese sauce was spread on the tortillas and I added black beans, chopped bell peppers and onion.

After folding it over I put them in a non stick pan to heat and brown.

The cassava cheese holds everything together because of how gooey it is. Vegan quesadillas are sometimes made with sweet potato to hold it together but this was so much better and didn't overpower with sweet potato taste. I like sweet potato but I prefer the quesadilla not to be sweet.

The pepper sauce was a good heat for heat lovers, but I wouldn't have minded it if it was hotter. Next time I will add more arbol peppers.

This is something that you can make super fast and easy once you have the sauce and vegan cheese made or bought. I prefer to make my own. It turned out not so easy for me with the chain reaction of grabbing oregano from the cupboard.

Time to dip in.

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