The Catholic Foodie

Fresh Salsa

Jeff Young -

I’ve been thinking about Mexican food ever since I got back from the CNMC in San Antonio. And I had Mexican food three times while I was there! Actually, it was authentic Tex-Mex.

Two days ago I made tacos for dinner. Anytime we make tacos, we always make fresh salsa. We have a recipe that we use every time, and it’s good.

But Wednesday night, I decided to do something different. We usually make salsa with canned diced tomatoes. But, this time I wanted to use fresh tomatoes. As I have mentioned before, Creole tomatoes are in season, and Creole is my favorite variety. We happened to have a number of Creoles on hand, so why not use those for the salsa.

Wow! I am so glad that we decided to try it with fresh tomatoes. As Char said, it was the best salsa we had ever made. It was so good, in fact, that I made it again last night!

Ingredients:

  • 6 to 8 goodly-sized tomatoes (of course, I prefer Creoles)
  • 3 jalapeno peppers – seeded (reserve seeds)
  • 5 or 6 cloves of garlic
  • 1/3 of large yellow onion
  • 1 small can of green chilis
  • 1/3 bunch of cilantro
  • Juice of 1/2 to 1 large lime
  • Roughly 1 tablespoon Cumin (generous tablespoon?)
  • Salt to taste

***Please keep in mind that everything is “to taste.” We rarely measure out ingredients.***

Method:

  1. Place onion, garlic and jalapenos in food processor. Process for a few seconds just to chop and mix ingredients.
  2. Quarter tomatoes and add to processor. Add can of green chilis, lime juice, cumin, and some salt (but don’t overdo it yet!).
  3. Process for several seconds, until all is well mixed and the tomatoes are finely chopped.
  4. Taste.
  5. Taste again.
  6. Add more salt to taste. You can also add more lime juice, cumin, or more of anything else that you have added).

Enjoy with your favorite type of tortilla chips (we prefer blue corn chips).

Incidentally, we use this salsa for our tacos (and just about any other Mexican dishes we prepare). This is the salsa that I will use for the chilaquiles I am preparing tonight.

Let me know how your salsa turns out!

¡Buen Provecho¡

***UPDATE 7/8/2009**** – I made this salsa again yesterday, and I used 6 jalapeno peppers… Wow! Awesome! More heat… and I like that!