After a long workday without lunch, I had worked up a good appetite by the time I got home. I knew I wanted something Mexican, but it had to be something relatively easy because I did not want to spend all night cooking.

Then I remembered a cooking magazine I’d just gotten. While flipping through it, I took note of a quesadilla recipe. Actually, it was three recipes – one with chicken, another with shrimp and the final one that I decided to make, chorizo and grated sweet potato. I wrote down the ingredients, hopped on my bike and rode to the Whole Foods Co-op, where I realized I’d forgotten to bring the shopping list with me.

It’s funny how the mind can so quickly forget stuff, but after some mental gymnastics, I was able to recall most of the things I needed for dinner – 10” inch tortillas, chorizo, sweet potato, a jar of red peppers, jalapeno and serrano chiles, cilantro and Monterey Jack cheese. I forgot the scallions. Oh, well.

For the chorizo, I decided to go with a four-pack of Field Roast Spicy Mexican Plant-Based Sausages (it’s a wheat gluten meat analog flavored with garlic, onions and chipotle and chili de arbol peppers).

Instead of plain old jarred red peppers, I opted for a jar of chopped Calabrian chiles packed in oil, just because I’d never had these Italian peppers before. For the tortillas, I chose a sprouted grain version instead of the flour tortillas called for in the recipe. And I went with a pepper-infused Monterey Jack goat cheese.

The first recipe instruction calls for microwaving the sweet potato for two minutes, but since I don’t own a microwave, I dropped the tuber into a pot of boiling water, but the lid on, turned off the heat and let it sit while I separated the chorizos from their casings and broke them up to fry in a bit of oil.

After a few minutes, I poured cold water on the sweet potato, peeled it and grated it into the chorizo, making sure all the grated sweet potato was exposed to the now dark orange-colored, chorizo-infused oil.

Then I added two spoons of the Calabria peppers, grated the 8-ounce block of goat cheese, plus I tossed in another small log of honey-flavored goat cheese I found in the fridge. Then I mixed it all together, including as the final touch, the entire bunch of cilantro, stems and all – unlike bitter parsley stems, cilantro stems are tasty and add texture.

Then I packed the filling into the tortillas, folded them over and fried them in a quarter-cup of vegetable oil until golden brown on each side. I ended up filling and frying all eight tortillas, but found that just one of them was all it took to satisfy me.

It was tasty, but the goat cheese didn’t really get quesadilla gooey. I hardly knew the cheese was there, but the flavor of the peppers combined with the faux chorizo and sweet potato, yum!

But leftovers, ugh! Wish I could buy supplies for one instead of for a family.