Harvest Season

I spent some time this weekend going through the garden. With as busy as I've been over the last few weeks, I needed to clean out as many of the vegetables as possible before the frost or squirrels got them (more on the squirrels at the bottom), so I was in the garden yesterday as the rain lightly fell upon me. Tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, onions, and a few cucumbers were all brought in, and these ingredients brought one combination to mind... minus those cukes that made their way in. It's recipe time, folks, as we'll get some fresh salsa made for the first Saturday night of hockey season!

I want to be upfront with this recipe: you can add other stuff to this. The info I'm providing below is literally the minimal version of what you need for salsa, but you can add anything else to it if you want to change the recipe - lime juice, cilantro, corn - to fit your tastes and needs. The one thing I warn you on is that the jalapeno peppers have the seeds included to provide the heat. If you aren't a fan of spicy salsa, be very cognizant of how much jalapeno pepper you're using!

The second thing that you need to know is that this salsa requires a little prep, but should be made within minutes before your event starts or guests arrives. It's meant to be served both fresh and warm, but it still tastes amazing if you bring it out of the fridge. I just happen to like it freshly-made and still warm thanks to the tomatoes, so serve as you like but remember that you're missing the glory of warm, fresh salsa if you make it long before your event starts or your guests arrive.

Ingredients

3 tomatoes, roasted

1 jalapeno pepper, quartered

½ onion

1 clove of garlic
salt to taste

Directions

Roasting the tomatoes is absolutely the secret "ingredient" in this salsa as roasting the tomatoes allows them to get sweeter through the evaporation of some of the water and lowers the acidity by upping the sweetness. To roast the tomatoes, pop them in the oven at 400F for about 15-20 minutes. Try not to let the skin char or it will affect the taste of the salsa in not-so-good ways. If the skins do char, just peel them off and use the flesh of the tomatoes.

Pop the tomatoes, onion, garlic clove, and a quarter of the jalapeno (with seeds) into the blender. Pulse it so that you end up with a chunky mixture of the vegetables - don't puree it! You want some chunks in the salsa for it to remain scoopable. Once you have your mixture pulsed to your satisfaction, taste it. If it's not hot or spicy enough, add another quarter of the jalapeno pepper. Also add some salt if it seems a little sweet. Re-pulse the jalapeno, and taste again. Repeat until the spiciness and saltiness are at the levels you like.

Once you have your mixture the way you like it, serve! Store the remainder in a mason jar in the fridge as this mixture should yield about two cups of salsa.

As stated above, you can add more items to this salsa. You may want to roast the garlic clove as well, giving this salsa a more garlicky-but-sweeter flavoring of the garlic if you want less of that pungent taste. You can also enhance the garlicky taste by using garlic salt, the oniony flavor by using onion salt, or some spiciness by adding some seasoning salt. Feel free to mix and match to your tastes, and enjoy this easy-to-make, delicious salsa!

As for the squirrels, I have discovered that my tomatoes have become a local delicacy for one red squirrel and one very large gray squirrel. It seems, according to research, they are biting into my tomatoes for both food and the juice. These little varmints, while cute, have cost me a handful of tomatoes already, so make sure that you keep an eye on ripening tomatoes in your garden if you have squirrels bounding through your yard. I'm not about to cage my tomatoes at this point in the season, but it might be something I have to do next year!

Like the squirrels, enjoy this tomato-based salsa as much as you can!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!