Strawberries – the fresh, in-season kind that are straight off the farm juicy and full of flavor – are good in pretty much anything. I love them plain, I love them in baked goods, in salads, and in cocktails, but they’re even more delectable when they’re paired with a completely different flavor palette. We’ve been lucky enough to receive a few delicious cartons of strawberries in our CSA box lately, and it’s been a blast cooking with them. I had been wanting to try out this recipe that I stumbled across on Sprouted Kitchen ever since I participated in the NoshGirl Challenge. It actually included both of the mystery ingredients, but I felt like it wasn’t in the spirit of the challenge to use a recipe that was someone else’s creation.
I’ve loved Sprouted Kitchen from the day I stumbled across it. The recipes aren’t strictly vegetarian or vegan, but absolutely everything is focused around fresh, seasonal ingredients which means that fruits, veggies and grains are usually the main focus, and I have a really easy time adapting the dishes for us. They also tend to be very simple recipes – case in point, these quesadillas took me maybe fifteen minutes from start to finish.
The main ingredient focus in these is definitely the produce – the strawberries, leeks, and the fresh cilantro are a must. I think it’d be really tasty with the goat cheese that she indicates (goat cheese is the one thing I really miss. In fact, Ross and I even gave ourselves a pass to eat it just once at the California Grill in Disney, and then felt far too guilty to do so once we got there. We had more wine -and delicious vegan entrees- instead.) Seriously, I had no problem giving up ice cream or anything else, just goat cheese!) but in order to omit the dairy, I used a thin layer of vegan cream cheese to coat the inside of the tortillas, and a sprinkling of Daiya mozzarella vegan cheese on top of that.
A quick side note about vegan cream cheese – we rarely use it, but this is one of those times where going to Whole Foods is a must, in my opinion. After befriending some of their employees, I knew that Whole Foods has a policy against stocking anything with what they deem (for lack of a better word) un-whole foods. I didn’t entirely believe it until I picked up a tub of Tofutti at Trader Joe’s, only to realize that – even though it’s the same brand – the kind that TJ’s sells has partially hydrogenated soybean oil (yuck) and a whole slew of other artificial ingredients.
Anyway, if you read Jenna’s blog, you know she recently wrote a very interesting post on recipe etiquette. The post delved into what the legalities of re-posting recipes are, but I also think it speaks well to what the spirit of sharing is. After thinking about it for a bit, my personal policy is that listing an unmodified recipe from a cookbook is a big no, but that blog recipes are great to link to. The only recipes that I’ll continue to directly post on here (as most of my recent ones have been) are going to be modified beyond recognition, or else something I made up on a whim without any recipe. I think that food blogging is a wonderful resource, especially for those of us who can’t afford to buy new cookbooks all the time. But these bloggers put a lot of time and energy into their recipes, and many make some money back through the advertising they run on their blogs.
In that spirit, I recommend you check out Sara’s recipe for these quesadillas here. Happy cooking, and happy Friday!
