Diced! – Jenna – Italian Quesadilla with White Wine Peach Sauce

Today we have an entrant for the first course of the Diced! competition. Contestants were instructed to create or find a recipe for an appetizer, soup or salad containing the following ingredients: Peach Preserves (or jam or jelly), Pita Bread, Regular carrots (baby ones would be acceptable) and Prosciutto. They were instructed to make their dish and create a blog post about it, including pictures. You can help determine who advances to the next round. On Friday, after the last post, I will post a poll where you can vote for up to four of the contestants to move on. Vote for the post you like the best. You can vote because of the inventiveness, the yummyness, the use of ingredients, the quality of the writing and pictures or for any other reason. The poll will be active for one week only. Check back and vote. In the event of a tie, the Ranting Chef will choose who advances. More information about Diced! can be found here.

Today’s contestant, Jenna has three blogs including The Burgeoning Gourmet. With all that blogging, I’m glad that she has time to compete here in Diced! Check out her blogs and the post below…

Italian Quesadilla with White Wine Peach Sauce

I’m aware this doesn’t sound that appetizing but it turned out surprisingly good!  When I got the list of ingredients, something Italian popped into my head.  Along with what I wanted to do with the peach preserves.  Especially since I am in no way a fan of anything peach flavored.  Oh, fresh peaches are great, but anything with a peach flavor always seems to pale in comparison.  I’m the same way with anything strawberry flavored.  But I digress.

Mandatory Ingredients:

3 tbsp. Peach Preserves

¼ lb. Prosciutto, sliced thinly

1 Pita bread

5-6 Baby Carrots

Additional ingredients used:

1 tbsp. Butter

¾ cup White Wine

Several leaves of fresh basil

½ cup shredded Mozzarella and Romano cheeses (combined)

Olive oil

Preheat oven to 350.  In a saucepan, combine peach preserves, white wine, and butter.  Whisk/stir until butter is completely melted and let simmer for 15 minutes or so.  Keep an eye on it and whisk/stir as needed.

Using a dry white wine will help keep the sweetness down to a minimum.

In the meantime, grate carrots (I used a food processor) and dice up basil.  Cut pita pockets in half and then separate.  They tend to want to anyway, and this makes putting it all together much easier.

Using a baking sheet, spray with Pam or similar.  Place the halves of the pita pockets on the sheet.

Brush a little of the olive oil on the bread.  Layer on one half of the pita bread with prosciutto, shredded carrot, cheese, and fresh basil.

Pop in the oven for 5 minutes.

When done, cut in half and pour sauce over top.

My Man loved this and is ready for me to make it again.  J

Remember – check back after the last post to vote on who advances in the Diced! competition.