Great recipes for Cinco de Mayo

Hola everyone!

I may not have a drop pf Hispanic blood in me, and I live in the Midwest, but that has never stopped me from enjoying good Mexican food.

So, with Cinco de Mayo all but upon us, I knew it was time to share some great recipes.

Recently, one of my favorite food bloggers, "Iowa Girl Eats," posted a roundup of something like 35 great Mexican influenced dishes from a variety of food bloggers.

Voila! (Sorry, I know that's French) I just knew I had to share it here!

From Sweet Potato Seven Layer Dip to Brown Butter Churros -- and of course not forgetting Blood Orange Margaritas, here's to enjoying Mexican Independence Day with great food options!

I love cheese quesadillas. Am looking for zucchini recipes. The Sesame Almond Butter Zucchini Noodle Bowl isn't it. Anybody out there have a less involved zucchini recipe to share???

Jabber,

I love cheese quesadillas too. Do you do yours with just cheese and tortillas or do you like to incorporate extra goodies like onions and peppers, zucchini or diced chicken? I probably prefer the latter, but don't know if those 'babies' are technically still quesadillas.

As for zucchini, I don't make it a lot, as Steve is not a veggie fan. Mostly I've put grated zucchini into a quick bread, sort of like an alternative to bananas. Or I slice them thinly and cook them with salt and pepper in chicken broth, then serve 'em with a bit of grated cheese on top. Or if you want to "health up" a lasagna recipe, you can always layer in sliced summer squash.

I went online however, and found this collection of zucchini recipes at health.com

Before I wrote the post above yours, I went online but every site I visited wanted me to sign in and yada,yada, yada. I ended up doing the zucchini like I do yellow summer squash. I cut them in relatively thin coins, coat them in pancake batter, and fry them in coconut oil. They turned out great. My neighbor gave me a huge zucchini; so I coined the ends and am going to cut the middle lengthways and layer both sides with tomato sauce and grated cheese. That should be good. Thanks health.com recipes.

As far as the quesadillas go, I've only ordered them in restaurants; never made them myself. But I love cheese and never order 'em with meat included.

I made some fantastic chicken quesadillas last night, Jabber. The recipe came from one of my current favorite TV chefs, The Pioneer Woman. If you're not familiar with her, she has a show on HGTV, and she's also a blogger and active Oklahoma ranch wife with a husband and four kids at home.

Here's a link to the blog post where she introduced this recipe, last year. I had all the ingredients I needed in the house. I used 4 nice chicken breasts (1.5 pounds), but I only shredded two of them. And used that - and 4 whole grain tortillas - to make two large (8-9 inch diameter) quesadillas.

I also deviated from the recipe a bit. I am not too fond of hot sauce, so I left that out, as well as the jalapenos and I only sauteed onions and green peppers. Simpler, and all I had in the house.

I topped the tortillas with a generous dab of light sour cream and peach pineapple salsa.

Yum! Highly recommended.

We ended up splitting one, and being plenty full.

Thanks Anne. This does look yummy. I eat more veggies and cheese than beef 'n poultry. But it looks good!

I don't think a day goes by that I don't eat vegetables and cheese. Not necessary mixed into the same dish, however. My friends think I'm such a big cheese eater because I'm from Wisconsin... LOL!

They say the first word I ever said is, "cheese"...

Amazing, Jabber! No one has said that about me, but I'm not sure I can go more than a day without eating some of the wonderful stuff!