Quesadilla Pie

I found this little doozy on Simply Recipes. It's super easy and tasty, and normally I would just link you to the original recipe, but my first attempt didn't come out so well so I'm adding a few notes in red that might help anyone else who tries it. Everything else is straight from the SR website.

Brush butter on the bottom of the pan to keep the tortillas from sticking, and to the top of the last tortilla for flavor and to help it brown. Hint: do not skip the butter.

Basic ingredients:

• 4 large flour tortillas (9-10 inches diameter) Don't try to go all health nut and use whole wheat tortillas. They don't work as well. Josh thinks corn would work best, and they may be worth a shot!
  
• Butter
• 1/2 pound grated cheese, either mild or sharp cheddar, or Monterey Jack

Potential filling ingredients:

• Beans, cooked (black beans, pinto beans)
• Tomatoes, chopped I used a can of diced tomatoes, and the chunks were really too big and watery. I would recommend either chopping up a fresh one, or using a well-drained can of petit diced.
  
• Summer squash, chopped
• Onions (green onions, red onions, onion greens) Half an onion should be sufficient...
  
• Mushrooms (if using a lot, sauté first, to remove moisture)
• Cooked shredded chicken, pork, or beef
• Chiles, either from cooked green chiles, chopped pickled jalapenos, or salsa I used a small can of Hatch Green Chile, but I didn't drain it well enough. Be sure to drain drain!
  
• Cumin and/or chili powder for extra heat

Garnishes:

• Chopped avocado
• Chopped cilantro
• Thinly sliced iceberg lettuce dressed with vinegar and salt
• Sour cream
• Salsa

Method

1 Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter the bottoms and sides of a pie dish, approximately the same size as your tortillas (I used a 10-inch pyrex pie dish for 10-inch wide tortillas).

2 Place one tortilla on the bottom of the pie dish. Sprinkle some shredded cheese over the tortilla. At this point, you will begin to add your chosen filling ingredients, and layering the tortillas. Just make sure each layer has a generous sprinkling of cheese. In the pictured example, I used cheese, black beans, and onion greens on the first layer. Then I added another tortilla on top of that and put chopped zucchini, chopped tomato, chopped pickled jalapenos, and more shredded cheese. I also sprinkled a little cumin and chili powder on this layer. I added another tortilla and put more shredded cheese, more black beans, tomatoes and onions. Top off your layers with one last flour tortilla. Spread a little butter over the surface of this tortilla.

3 Cover the dish with aluminum foil. Put in oven for 30 minutes on 350°F. Then remove the foil and increase the heat to 400°F. Cook for another 15-20 minutes, until the top is lightly browned and cheese is bubbly. Remove from oven. Let cool for 10 minutes before serving. Cut into quarters.

Serve with chopped avocados, shredded lettuce, cilantro, salsa, and/or sour cream.

Serves 4.

Be sure to drain your ingredients well, otherwise your dish will end up looking like mine! (Although Josh was very sweet and insisted it still tasted good. I thought it was good enough, but not great!)