This is an exciting time of year for the gardener and the cook. So much is coming out of the garden there will never be a time when you can eat so well for so little. It seems free, at least, even though you have put heart, soul, blood, sweat, tears and many other clichés into getting all that food to grow.
Gardeners are usually not an ostentatious lot, but it is difficult to not share pictures of perfect tomatoes and unusual varieties of white eggplant on social media outlets and on smart phones at softball tournaments. Gardeners want the world to know what they have accomplished after all.
Early August marks the end of some crops like summer raspberries that you hopefully preserved and currants but nobody eats those anyway. It is the beginning for some of summers favorite crops like juicy cantaloupe and a bumper crop of tomatoes and peppers.
This oddly hot and miserably humid summer has produced an abundance of nightshade crops. It has been years since my peppers, both hot and sweet, have done so well. I give credit to the weather, but perhaps the fact I have completely neglected the garden in the extreme temperatures plays a larger role.
With so many perfect tomatoes and peppers it is time to make salsa. Salsa is one of those creations, like pasta sauce, that is as individual as the person who makes it. Perhaps there is a secret ingredient or a special time to make it when the moon is waxing and 97 percent full. If that is the case, you are too late.
I think the best salsa comes from a few key ingredients and requires no cooking. Fortunately the key ingredients are ripe in our gardens now and the thought of cooking, even in an air-conditioned kitchen, doesnt sound like fun as the heat continues to be unceasing.
Salsa, like most recipes as far as Im concerned, need not be made by following a strict recipe. In the kitchen rules are meant to be broken, except for the obvious ones like dont cut vegetables on the same cutting board as raw chicken.
Here is my familys basic salsa recipe.
4 cups ripe tomatoes,
cored and chopped
5 jalapeno peppers, seed-
ed cored and chopped
2 medium yellow onions,
chopped
1¿2 green bell pepper,
seeded, cored and
chopped
1 cup fresh or canned
tomato sauce
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon finely
chopped garlic
2 tablespoons chopped
fresh cilantro
1 1¿2 tablespoons red
wine vinegar or lime juice (The original recipe called for vinegar, but somewhere we started using lime juice)
This salsa is best served hours later after the flavors have had a chance to meld in the fridge. It keeps for a week, but it never lasts that long. Its great for chips, tacos, burritos and all the standard items typically doused with the favorite Latin condiment, but it can also be added to eggs, baked potatoes, fish or shrimp.
Mix it up a bit and add a combination of different colored tomatoes and peppers or throw in some roasted corn or diced fresh peaches. There are endless combinations to create a salsa that is perfect to serve at any meal and shows off some of summers finest produce.
To read more Avant Gardener, visit Kyle at www.TuscBargainHunter.com.
