A Weekend In Mainly One Room

If you ask me where I was on this Labour Day long weekend, my answer may sound rather boring as I'll respond with "in my kitchen". It seems more and more likely with some leaves already turning and a number of outdoor plants having gone to seed earlier than normal in August that we may be looking at an earlier fall and winter situation than normal. Because of this, a number of garden plants had vegetables ready to be picked, so I spent this morning in the heat picking everything in the garden that could be picked. Tomatoes, peppers, beets, onions, potatoes, rhubarb, and cucumbers all came out of the garden, and that left me with a pile of work to do.

Yes, this is a non-hockey entry on HBIC, and I'll warn you that tomorrow will be the same. Ripe vegetables will go bad if not tended to in an appropriate time, and it was not my intention to let my haul be ignored for long! Let's see what I was doing!

Being that there were things that simply weren't going to be used over the next two days, the first task at hand was to prep the veggies that were heading for the freezer. That included the three dozen stalks of rhubarb that were cleaned, chopped, and bagged in their airtight freezer bags for use sometime this winter, a dozen jalapeno peppers that were chopped, seeded, and bagged, and two dozen banana peppers that were chopped, seeded, and bagged.

When I was done, two-and-a-half large freezer bags of rhubarb, one smaller bag of jalapenos, and one very stuffed smaller bag of banana peppers now await my consumption this winter. Being that I have strawberries frozen, I'm thinking some sort of strawberry-rhubarb creations will happen, and the jalapenos and banana peppers can be used on nachos and in Mexican dishes when needed. I felt good about my progress.

And that's when this madness caught my attention on the other counter - I had about three dozen tomatoes waiting for me. Being that I still had onions and a handful of banana peppers that I had kept aside, the obvious solution was to make salsa. I didn't have any cilantro, but I'm not overly concerned with cilantro at the best of times when it comes to salsa so I looked for something to boost the flavours of the ingredients I had. After a quick search through the various jars I had in which I would store said salsa, the solution presented itself: roasted garlic salsa!

I normally keep a jar of peeled garlic in the freezer when I need it quick and I don't have a bulb kicking around the kitchen. In this case, I knew that jar of peeled garlic was about two-thirds full, so it was off to the internet to find a recipe that would contain all of the ingredients I did have. Knowing that I needed to use at least a dozen tomatoes of all sizes, the search came back fruitful!

I found this recipe on Coupon Clipping Cook, and it fit my needs... minus the cilantro. I made some modifications, though, because of what I had available, so here's my recipe based on the one linked above. Have fun with it, feel free to adjust as needed, but a garlicky salsa is never a bad thing!

Ingredients

• 1 bulb of garlic or 12 large cloves
• 2 cups of tomatoes, peeled
• 1 tbsp of oil
• 5 tablespoons of butter
• 1/2 medium or 1 small onion, peeled and coarsely-chopped
• 3 medium peppers, coarsely-chopped and seeded
• 2 tsp garlic salt - 1 to add, 1 to adjust for taste

Directions

1. Preheat the over to 375F. Place the garlic bulb or cloves in the middle of a small aluminum oil sheet, and drizzle the oil over the garlic. Fold the corners of the aluminum oil into the middle to enclose the garlic. Place in oven for 25-30 minutes.
2. Remove garlic from oven and let cool for ten minutes.
3. Combine the tomatoes, peppers, and onion in a food processor or blender. Add 1 tsp of salt, but don't over-salt! When cooled enough, add the garlic to food processor or blender
4. If using a food processor, chop the ingredients to one's liking for coarseness. If using a blender, use the "Mix" or "Sauce" setting, and blend until all large chunks been blended.
5. At this point, test the mixture and see if additional salt is needed. Add salt until satisfied with taste.
6. Move to a container for storage, and chill in refrigerator for three-or-more hours before serving to allow mixture to completely mix flavours.

I tested a sample tonight after making it up this afternoon, and it was solid! Garlicky with a hint of the pepper flavour, but very enjoyable from the traditional tomato-based salsas. You may notice, as I did, that the salt originally added started to be absorbed by the mixture so that the hint of salt that was in the salsa is now gone. Simply add a pinch more salt, give it a mix, and let it dissolve again. That should restore that hint of saltiness with which the garlic works so well.

At the end of the day, it was a long day spent in the kitchen getting ready for what could be an early winter. I'm no weather expert so don't rely on me for forecasts, but having these veggies in the kitchen this weekend when I have an extra day to prepare them for sauces and for winter means I don't have to rush to do it later in the season.

You won't hear one complaint from me about that!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!