Salsa

I've been away a lot the last few months, often without easy internet access, so I haven't been posting to my blog. Perhaps you've noticed, or maybe you've been plenty busy yourself.

But this is the time of year to restart - school, cooking, work, friendships - whatever you've had to break from during the summer. 

When it's hot out, I tend to make meals that require very little cooking.  I avoid contributing one more calorie of heat to the environment, if I can help it.  But now that it's a little cooler, I'm enjoying firing up the stove, figuring out what to make from the bounty we recieve each week from our local farm membership.

This past week I made salsa.  Salsa is like pesto or spaghetti sauce - there are a million ways to make it, once you have the basics down.  I've blanched tomatoes, tomatillos, and hot peppers till the skins slip off, thrown them in the food processor with onion, garlic, basil, cilantro, parsley - and voila!  Simple.  This is the way some of my friends from Mexico taught me. 

This week I decided to broil the vegetables.  I love the sweet flavor this imparts.  And I had some fresh okra, too, so decided to throw that in.  I also roasted the onion, rather than use it raw.

So here's what I used:

    A few tomatoes (6 or 7 medium)

    About 7 small to medium tomatilloes

   5 jalapeno peppers

   an onion

    4 okra

I roasted these till they were charred on all sides, then removed the skins and stems as necessary and put them in the food processor.  I added a handful of fresh cilantro, salt and pepper to taste, whirled them till they were processed, and stored them in the fridge. 

We've enjoyed them with chips, but also as a topping for eggs or fish.

Let me know how you use your late summer vegetables!  I'm always looking for good, simple ideas.