Home Grown Garden Salsa

Zesty, fulfilling and addictive.  Are the three words I describe my garden salsa.  Forgive me if I brag, but I just adore my recipe. Why, you ask?   Well, let me explain.  For many years I never really cared for salsa for various reasons.  To chunky.  To Hot.  To Sweet.  To Oniony.  To bland.  The list goes on and on. So, I had an epiphany.  Make my own.  Go figure!  I started making my own eight years ago when we had an over abundance of Tomatoes, Onions, Peppers, Cilantro and Garlic from our Garden.  So instead of possibly violating local law by performing a drive-by Vegging of an unsuspecting friends house, I decided to put a few of my skills to work.  With a Basic salsa recipe in mind, I started out.  I new what I wanted and what I liked and finding that balance was a little difficult.  To much cilantro and you have a green cilantro salsa.  To much onion or even better, to "strong" of an onion and you have Onion Salsa.  So, finding the perfect balance at the beginning, was a bit of a task.  I kept in the back of my mind that this should be as simple as adjusting taste with salt.  To little it was bland.  To much, well, it would be ruined.  I think after the second year in my own test kitchen, I was able to find the balance and become satisfied with my salsa. 

The thing about salsa is personal taste.  Its one of those things that just depends on the person.  One person wants chunky and the other wants more garlic but less chunks.  I often wonder if a Custom Salsa Company might not be such a far fetched idea.  You want HOT HOT HOT!?!?  Boom!  Done!  You want massive garlic?  Done!  I haven't any idea if that kind of company exist.  But, when it comes to salsa, personal taste is the key.

My Children love the salsa which is a good thing.  They love to add it to there home made tacos.  If I put a bowl out with some fresh tortilla chips they load up.  Just tonight, I came home from work and opened a fresh Jar of the stuff and munched away.  I'm actually sitting here typing all the while, smacking my lips together because I want more.  I want to feed that little tang of the salsa flavor residue on my tongue that is making my mouth continue to water.  So with that I will get to the recipe so I can take a break and get myself a little more of the addictive salsa.

Home Grown Garden Fresh Salsa

Ingredients:

5 lbs of Tomatoes

2 lbs of Onions

6 Anaheim Peppers (seeded)

6 Banana Peppers (seeded)

6 Green Bell Peppers (seeded)

4 Bulbs of Roasted Garlic Minced *If you don't want to roast your own just buy a large bottle of the Christopher Ranch Roasted Garlic minced*

2 Bundles of Cilantro

1/2 Cup Fresh Lime Juice

1/2 Cup Lawry's Seasoned Salt, 16 oz * Economy Size

1/4 Cup Ground Pepper

Sea Salt (add to desired taste)

The Process:

You will need  Cuisinart DLC-2009CHB Prep 9 9-Cup Food Processor, Brushed Stainless  or something similar and a 5 Gal Bucket.

Simply wash and prep all veggies for your food processor.  You will want to make sure that Tomatoes, Onions, and peppers are cut into small enough pieces so the processor can puree them easily.

Process Tomatoes, Onions, and peppers to your desired consistency (chunky, fine, pureed) and pour them into your 5 gal bucket.

Add your Garlic and Lime Juice.

Chop Cilantro very fine and add to processor with 2 cups of salsa from the 5 Gal bucket (only processing  1 bundle at a time.)  Puree so that your Cilantro will start to turn your Salsa green.  pour into bucket.

Add Seasoning salt and Pepper. 

Stir the Salsa till blinded thoroughly. 

Taste then adjust with Sea salt

I recognize this is a pretty rough recipe.  But, as I stated, Salsa is all about personal taste.  I never expect people to follow recipes to the letter because as any other recipe, we make them our own with items we love.  I do feel however, that this is a great all around recipe that has a good flavor from fresh Garden produce.  So Grab a bag of chips or a few flour tortillas and enjoy the bounty of your hard summers work.

Finito!