Mine are finally - slowly - starting to turn. It's taken them awhile, because I had to do an entire replant. Not sure exactly what happened, but the entire first batch that I initially planted in the ground kicked the bucket, and by the time I bit the bullet to go and get some more seedlings, all they had were some teeny, tiny plants. So, it's taken them awhile to catch up.
Lew said that the first ones that I planted were too tall with kind of weak bases. He said you need to look for fairly short, but very strong tomato plants when you go shopping. I did not know this little tidbit, so I got me the tallest ones I could find - thinking they would put me ahead of the game. They did not. Live and learn. This man is a wealth of knowledge...
But here we are now, with my cherry and grape tomato plants exploding, and all of my others slowly plodding along behind them. Not even sure what I had in the ground this go round though! Some regular sized, some super chubby, and some romas. It's all good. Variety is the spice of life, they say.
So, our first recipe of the tomato season is a fun little zesty salsa. This is a dish that anyone can adapt to suit their own taste buds. The initial recipe itself contains such instructions as: "a healthy shake of this," and "a good sized fistful of that" - so there are no exact measurements of anything, anyway. Usually a recipe like this completely throws me for a loop, but if you have a yummy bag of tortilla chips beside you for some taste testing along the way, it really becomes a not so painful process to get it to your liking.
These are my favorite combinations of ingredients that I have come across in a long time. It uses all fresh garden veggies and herbs, and then adds a few fun ingredients to give it a kind of a smoky finish. It's delish. And quite pizzazzy.
So, here's what you'll need - in the more or less not so exact amounts:
A few kajillion tomatoes
A whole wack of green peppers
A bunch of onions
Some fresh cilantro
Some cloves of garlic
However many - and whatever kind - of hot peppers
Lots of lime juice
Many shakes of cumin
Dash of olive oil
Some canned chipotle peppers in adobo sauce - in addition to the fresh hot peppers
Several shakes of Liquid Smoke
Kosher salt to taste
Have at it until it comes out to your liking!
Trash your kitchen along the way...
Chuck it all in a pot and mix, mix, mix!!!
Invite husbands and children to come and give their two cents for what it may need.
Process 15 minutes in a hot water bath.
And savor the flavor, Baby!
1 comment:
It's 8:20 pm. The kids are all tucked in bed. My taste buds are yearning for something yummy. And I'm drooling over your salsa.
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