…..Aaron's EnvironMental Corner…..

DIY – Making Easy-Prep Salsa

Filed Under: Do It Yourself, Organic Gardening, Susatainable Living, recipe on August 25, 2009

My wife and I made the farmer’s market and found a grower with a lot of peppers.  He was selling them by the pound, so we loaded up.  We have tomatoes coming in on the vine at home and lots of use for good, organic, medium-hot peppers.

Over the weekend, we got busy working on those peppers and I made salsa while my wife prepared the rest of the bounty for storage and use later.  There will be a another post on how that’s done coming soon.

To make this salsa, I had tomatoes from our vines, the aforementioned peppers (including a couple of green and a red bell) and that’s about it.  This is an easy recipe that doesn’t require a lot of preparation or ingredients.  Other than the peppers and tomatoes, I put only some sea salt and a few basil leaves from the herb garden.

Here’s a step-by-step on making this quick and easy salsa.

First, cut the stem from the peppers and slice to remove the placenta and seeds (this goes for the bell peppers too).  For every mild or hot pepper being added, you’ll need two good-sized tomatoes as well.  Cut those into slices, removing the stem and core.

In stages, depending on what your blender can handle, ad the tomatoes and pepper chunks and blend.  I used the “Burst” feature on our Oster to create a pulsing, which draws the ingredients down to the blade.  If you have a food processor, your life is much easier and you’ll want to use that instead.  If you have neither, you’ll need to manually chop the peppers and juice and chop the tomatoes as well.

Once it’s all blended, mix into a container (a bowl, jar, etc.) and swirl together using a spoon.  Ad salt to taste.  I chopped the basil by throwing leaves into the blender, but you can chop those manually for a finer cut if you’d prefer.

That’s it.  It’s a very easy recipe: fast and tasty! If yours is particularly hot (ours used one medium and one hot pepper), you can thicken it with some sour cream or flour to cut the heat down.

Measurements for this one are totally to taste, but here’s what was used in ours for a guide.  We ended up with about six cups (1-1/2 quarts) of salsa when done:

• 2 medium-sized tomatoes and 1 large tomato
• 2 peppers: one hot, one medium (seeds removed)
• 2-1/2 bell peppers (I ate the other half, all seeds were removed)
• 12 basil leaves, fresh cut (no stems, just leaves)
• 1 tbs of sea salt (give or take)

That’s it.  I just blended them in stages and, as shown here, poured into our revolving salsa jug using a funnel made out of the top of a 2-liter soda bottle.  That funnel is part of my “jarring/canning” kit, which is currently always out and at the ready in the kitchen, given the time of year.

Again, mix your salsa to taste and just enjoy!

Related posts:

1. Making Fried Green Tomatoes – 2 Recipes
2. Aaron’s Crock Pot Chili (o DOOM)
3. DIY – Freezing Peppers to Preserve Them For Cooking