Chickpea Quesadillas

Hello! Its been a long, long time. Despite the absence, there has been a lot of cooking going on here! Here's the first of hopefully many (more frequent) posts to come...

We were so excited to have Samina with us for the past two weeks in Ann Arbor. The weather was really beautiful, so we were able to eat on our front porch in the evenings. One of my favorite ways to eat! This evening, we all wanted something easy and delicious- chickpea quesadillas. I made it up a while back and knew the basic proportions, though they are easy to tweak to your own tastes.

To make the chickpeas:
Heat 1-2T olive oil in a large frying pan.
Add 1/2 chopped yellow onion, 2 cloves crushed and minced garlic, 1 tsp cumin/coriander blend, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, 3/4 hot finger pepper (de-seeded and finely chopped), 1 tsp sea salt.
Saute until onions are soft and translucent.
Add 3 chopped tomatoes and cook until soft and sauce begins for form.
Add 1T adobo sauce (available canned in most grocery stores- with the chiles).
Add 1 large (I think 24 oz?) can of well rinsed and de-skinned chickpeas.
Bring to a boil, then simmer on very low for about 20-25min, until all the flavors are well incorporated. Stir every so often, mashing a few chickpeas into the side of the pan to thicken the sauce.

Then compose the quesadillas:
Each one has about 1/3 cup of the chickpeas, 1/4 grated pepper jack cheese, 2T fresh salsa, 1 tsp guacamole (or mashed avocado), 1 tsp chopped cilantro.

Heat a large flat frying pan and brush each side of the quesadilla with a little olive oil.
Fry on each side for about 2min on med-low heat (until lightly browned and crispy) and serve immediately, garnished with an extra bit of cilantro if you like.

We ate ours with chips/salsa/guacamole and amazing watermelon.