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8. Remove the sandwich to a cutting board. Unwrap, cut into wedges, and serve.

Smoky Black Bean Quesadillas

Like grilled cheese sandwiches, quesadillas are meant to be simple little snacks. But you don’t have to stop at just tortillas and cheese. You can add beans, vegetables, or shredded chicken or pork along with the cheese. Just don’t fill them up too much or the fillings will get squeezed out when you cut them into wedges. Here we fill the tortillas with some Smoky Black Beans with Cilantro and Lime.

TIMING

Prep: 5 minutes (plus 10 hours for beans)

Grill: 6 to 10 minutes

GRILL TOOLS AND EQUIPMENT

• Long-handled spatula

SHORTCUT

• To save time, drain a can (15 ounces) of black beans and mash the beans along with about ½ cup jarred or well-drained refrigerated salsa. Use this mixture instead of the smoky black beans.

GETTING CREATIVE

• As with most sandwiches, the fillings here are endlessly variable. Replace the beans with the grilled vegetables from Grilled Vegetable Fajitas (page 273). Use some shredded chicken from Bean Butt Chicken (page 194), some shredded duck from Smoky Barbecued Duck (page 200), or a bit of pulled pork from Pulled Pork Three Ways (page 210). If you have leftover rotisseried chicken in the fridge, shred it and use that. It’s a sandwich after all. Fill it with what you like.

• For a rich flourish, brush the quesadillas with melted butter right when they come off the grill and before cutting them into wedges. They’re a bit messier to eat when brushed with butter, but they taste great.

* * *

THE GRILL

Gas:

Direct heat, medium (350°F)

Clean, oiled grate

Charcoal:

Direct heat, medium ash

12-by-12-inch charcoal bed (about 3 dozen coals)

Clean, oiled grate on lowest setting

Wood:

Direct heat, medium ash

12-by-12-inch bed, 3 inches deep

Clean, oiled grate set 4 inches above the fire

INGREDIENTS (MAKES 4 QUESADILLAS—6 TO 8 SERVINGS)

1½ cups Smoky Black Beans with Cilantro and Lime (page 293)

2 cups shredded pepper Jack or Cheddar cheese

8 flour tortillas (8 to 10 inches in diameter) Oil for coating grill grate

1 cup salsa, for dipping

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat the grill as directed.

2. Put the beans in a medium bowl and mash with a fork.

3. For each quesadilla, scatter about ¼ cup of cheese over a tortilla. Spread about one-fourth of the beans over the cheese, then scatter another ¼ cup of cheese on top. Top with another tortilla.

4. Brush the grill grate and coat it with oil. Put the quesadillas on the grill (use a spatula to help transfer them), cover, and cook until nicely grill-marked and the cheese melts, 3 to 5 minutes per side. If your grill has a temperature gauge, it should stay at around 350°F.

5. Remove to a cutting board and let cool slightly. Cut into wedges like a pizza and serve.

Shortbread S’mores

One of David’s pet peeves about s’mores is that the toasted marshmallows are rarely hot enough to melt the chocolate from a typical chocolate bar. So we skip the chocolate bar and use spreadable chocolate instead. Nutella is a widely available brand of chocolate-hazelnut spread with a rich, creamy texture and subtle hazelnut flavor. Europeans eat it like peanut butter. Look for Nutella near the peanut butter or other chocolate in your grocery store. David’s other pet peeve is that when you make a sandwich out of s’mores and bite down, the hot, melted marshmallow squishes out. So we use only one cookie per serving to make open-face s’mores. Shortbread cookies make the perfect bed for these campfire snacks.

TIMING

Prep: 1 minute

Grill: 2 to 4 minutes

GRILL TOOLS AND EQUIPMENT

• Long skewers or thin sticks

TIPS

• Packaged shortbread comes in all shapes and sizes, including rounds, rectangles, and triangular wedges. We tested these s’mores with round shortbread Sandies made by Keebler because they’re widely available and the round shape is perfect for marshmallows.

• To prepare several s’mores at once, spread several cookies with chocolate spread and impale as many marshmallows onto your skewer or stick