Homemade Salsa

I appear to be on something of a salsa kick.  I never used to eat salsa before I met Miyagi . . . or cucumbers.  The thing is I don't really like tomatoes as much as I put up with tomatoes.  So while I loved the flavor, the chunks were always the bane of my existence.  Chunks are hard to ignore.  They're like little battalions, waving their flags and shouting "hey!  Notice me!  Notice the nasty way I feel when you squish me between your teeth!!!"  See?  Gross.

Ahem.  This recipe has no chunks.  Not the way I make it.  I found this over at thepioneerwoman.com but don't look at her version of the recipe . . .her pictures look much better than mine. 

All you need for this recipe is a food processor (in my case a smoothie maker) and a few things to throw in together.

These are good to start with.  1 can of whole tomatoes, juice and all.  Two cans of diced tomatoes and chilies.  (Miyagi didn't know what to get at the store so he brought home something called Mexican salsa . . . is that the same thing?  I don't know.  But it worked great!) 1 whole fresh Jalapeno (seeds and all), chopped, and a bunch of lightly chopped cilantro.  (but not a bunch.  Just a handful or twp.)

Add in about 1/4 cup chopped onion, and a clove of minced garlic. Nothing needs to be chopped too finely because it's all going to get blended together in your blender.  Convenient eh?

Throw this all in your blender and add 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp sugar, 1/4 tsp cumin and the juice of half a large lime.

Just a word about lemon/lime juice.  Have you ever tasted real lemon juice and then tasted the stuff in the bottle?  It's not pleasant.  It's like liquid tartness without any of the flavor.  Trust me on this, you're life will be happier if you use more real lemon/lime juice.

Do you know what else will make you happier?  Buying one of these little juicer things!  They're like $4 and they get EVERY DROP.  That was always my biggest obstacle to using fresh lemons; I just didn't have the Abductor Pollicis Brevis power. (that's your hand muscle!)  See the how shredded that lime is?  With little to no strength you can happily dredge the fruit of all it's juicy goodness.

Ok.  Back to salsa.  Basically you're adding everything in the blender at once, and praying it fits, then hit pulse a few times to get things mingled.  It doesn't take much.  6 or 7 times was enough to mix everything thoroughly and chop it very fine.  Pulse more if it makes you giggle.  Or less if you like the chunks.  (Savage!)

Also trust that your salsa will look more appetizing than this picture does.  Stupid florescent lighting in the kitchen.

The heat in this turned out to be just right for Miyagi and me, although we occasionally ran into little "pockets" of inferno heat, it was overall quite pleasant. If you want to adjust the heat you can add more jalapeno, or remove the seeds and membranes for less heat.  We also realized that our "Mexican salsa" had heat levels.  We had two labeled "very hot" and two not labeled at all.  We split our chances and put in one of each.  We're risk takers like that.

Oh.  Also?  This makes A LOT of salsa. Be prepared.  For two people in a tiny apartment (I'm not sure how the apartment factors in but it DOES) we almost had too much.  I took a bunch into work the next day and almost a week later we're still working through it.  Did you see that smoothie maker?  This is like 4 large smoothies worth of salsa.

Can you "can" salsa?  Well not YOU specifically, but can it be done without resulting in massive hospital bills?  If so this would totally be worth it.  It takes all of 10 minutes to make and tastes 10 MILLION times better than anything at the store.  I'll have to look into this . . . results to follow!

Homemade Salsa

1 can (28 Ounce) Whole Tomatoes With Juice
2 cans (10 Ounce) diced Tomatoes And Green Chilies (Mexican Salsa?)
¼ cups Chopped Onion
1 clove Garlic, Minced
1 whole Jalapeno, chopped
¼ teaspoons Sugar
¼ teaspoons Salt
¼ teaspoons Ground Cumin
½ cups Cilantro
½ whole Lime Juice

Dump everything in your food processor or blender and pulse until you reach your desired consistency.