Quesadillas and Asparagus

I'm pretty sure that quesadillas and asparagus don't show up on the menu together in very many places.
Here they do. What they have in common is that they are such simple foods to cook that they don't even deserve their own post. They are also both tasty.
We'll start with asparagus because I've actually had people stop me at the store when they saw me buying it to ask how to cook it. Three times. They all seem to know that it's good for you, but they don't know how to make it. Cooking it is really the easy part, its the prep that unknowingly throws people off. Asparagus is woody. Almost always, the bottom part is more like a log than a food. The top part is the yummy part. This is true whether it is skinnier than a pencil or bigger around than your thumb.  The tricky thing is that there is no visual way to tell where the line between people food and livestock food is. The asparagus knows though. All you have to do is grab one end in one hand, and one end in the other and bend. It will snap at the perfect spot every time. It's one of those little miracles of food. Just pitch the stumps and eat the tops. No more woody asparagus.
The easiest way to cook it is in the microwave. Place it in a shallow pan, put in just enough water to cover the bottom and cover. Microwave for 3-4 minutes and then mix it all up and check to see how it's doing. It will probably need 2-4 more minutes, you have to feel your way through this, You don't want it soft. Mushy asparagus is bad. Crunch is your friend, but just a bit, you have to do it a few times to get the feel of it.  Take it out and drain it and put some butter on it while it's still hot enough to melt. It's yummy, my daughter says it's not as bad as broccoli. I'm pretty sure that's praise.
Note that I did say that this is the easiest way to cook it. You can probably make better asparagus by laying it out on a baking sheet, brushing it with olive oil, putting a bit of garlic salt on it and roasting it in the oven at 350 until it's done. Maybe 15 minutes? It's been a while, roasting might be better, but it's not easier.
Quesadillas are almost too easy to write about. They're just a grilled cheese sandwich with tortillas instead of bread.  Heat your pan to medium low, 4 on my stove, put down a tortilla, put some cheese on it, put another tortilla on top. Flip after a few minutes. Done. It's even easier than grilled cheese because you cook them dry, you don't have to butter them like you do bread. In fact, if you're careful you can end up with a clean pan. No washing!
Throw some meat on there with the cheese, some avacado, some blanched spinach, some garlic, whatever is in your fridge and goes with cheese. Hot dog slices for the kids.  There is no end to their possibility and yet they are so simple. Most people probably think I'm wasting time even writing about them. Let me explain.
I grew up in the mid west in the 80's and 90's. It was not, and continues to not be, a bastion for creative cooking. Spices were not used. It was quite likely that your mom had the same container of pepper that she got when she got married 20 years ago. Most of my friends houses, as well as my own, were like this. Consequently I didn't find out about quesadillas until I went to Mexico to study volcanoes in college. It it wasn't for that trip, I might be raising my kids without the knowledge of such an incredible food. I fear that right now, some stay at home dad somewhere doesn't know about these, and soon he'll stumble on this site and it will change his life. If I can do that for just one man, then my good work here will all be worth it.
Really though, I don't suck as a cook so much that all I feed my kids is pancakes and quesadillas. The quesadilla in the picture had slow roasted pulled pork on it that I made over the weekend and I have a loaf of orange rye bead rising in the kitchen right now. I will write about better food as things progress. I just want to get some simple things out there so that if my readership ever grows to include any actual stay at home dads then maybe I can help make their lives easier. 
I can cook like Julia Child, just not every night.