Fresh Garden Salsa

So I finally made salsa!!! I wanted to share my recipe since I’ve been talking about doing this all summer…

You will need (this is what I used but all quantities were completely guessed at… I’m pretty sure that if you add lots of cilantro garlic and onion to tomatoes no matter what you do it will end well):

• Fresh Cilantro – this may be the end of my cilantro… it’s been trying to bolt for weeks…
• Garlic – not from my garden… next year I’ll grow this!
• A little bit of lime juice
• 4 hotish peppers – I had Hungarian wax and chipolte peppers but whatever you grew is fine.
• 1 green pepper – also from the garden
• 1 yellow pepper (or red or orange or whatever) – also from the garden
• Approx. 11 large homegrown tomatoes – I had early girls and a few beefsteaks ripe… but again whatever you grew. I’ll bet heirloom tomato salsa would be phenomenal!
• 3 small yellow onions – also from the garden
• Salt (I used my salt grinder)
• Pepper

Step 1: Grow the ingredients.




Step 2: Peel and seed tomatoes. I had no idea how to do this before so yeah… What I learned is that you cut a little cross in the bottom of the tomato and then drop it into boiling water for approx. 30 seconds. Then drop it into cold water to stop it from cooking… from there it’s real easy to peel off the skins. To seed a tomato you just cut it in half and scoop out the seeds. It’s easier than I thought it would be, just time consuming. If there's an easier way to do this please let me know!

Step 3: Chop up fresh cilantro (a whole lot), a few cloves of garlic, and a little lime juice in the food processor – a couple good pulses.


Step 3: Add seeded hot peppers and chop for another couple pulses (I've been told that this takes away all of the heat...oops! if you want your salsa to be hot leave in the seeds).


Step 4: Add seeded green and yellow peppers for another couple pulses.


Step 5: Add seeded, skinned, tomatoes a few at a time and pulse for a few pulses each. If you want a chunkier salsa you can chop the tomatoes and onions and just stir them together with the pepper concoction without using the food processor… but I wanted a more pureed, restaurant-style salsa.


Step 6: Add chopped onion and pulse a few more times – it’s important to add the onion last and to chop it beforehand b/c apparently onion in the food processor ends up with a yucky consistency… something about it not chopping completely….


Step 7: Taste and adjust! I added another garlic clove and a few more cilantro leaves, salt, and pepper at this point because it seemed somehow lacking in flavor.

Step 8: Refrigerate overnight. I didn’t know this but salsa tastes kindof bland at first… I kept trying to add things (step 7) and finally gave up in frustration. Well then the next day it was AMAZING. All of the flavors had melded into tasty, yummy, fresh, wonderful, salsa!


Enjoy with chips, tortillas, on chicken for a burrito, on nachos, in bean dip, etc. etc. etc.

I have to warn you…this "recipe" makes a boatload of salsa… unless you’re having a lot of people over it might be better to halve the recipe.

Stay tuned for info on canned salsa – I did that this weekend but I haven’t downloaded my pictures yet!