Avant Gardener: seasonal produce becomes salsa

  • By Kyle Valentini
  • July 31, 2012
  • 340
                        
Summer: It is time to make salsa with all the delicious peppers and tomatoes coming out of the backyard garden. No garden? No problem. Pick up summer’s favorite seasonal produce at the farmers’ market this week. 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 cliques 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 summer’s favorite crops like juicy cantaloupe and a bumper crop of tomatoes and peppers. This oddly hot and miserably humid summer has produced and 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% 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 doesn’t sound like fun as the heat continues to be unceasing. Salsa like most recipes as far as I’m 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 don’t cut vegetables on the same cutting board as raw chicken. Here is my family’s basic salsa recipe. 4 cups ripe tomatoes, cored and chopped 5 jalapeno peppers, seeded cored and chopped 2 medium yellow onions, chopped ½ 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 ½ tablespoons red wine vinegar or lime juice (The original recipe called for the 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. It’s 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 summer’s finest produce.


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