Salsa, Anyone?

Salsa.

Yum.

Just saying that word makes my mouth water. If you don't like salsa, you haven't tried mine. It's awesome. Especially with a beer or margarita. :)

Thank you, Angie, for introducing me to home made salsa! It's always in my fridge. I stopped by the store at 8:45 last night on my way home from a photography class to pick up some tomatoes because I just had to have some salsa.

Then I got home and made it. Then I went to grab the tortilla chips. Doh. I didn't have much. Just the last 1/4 of a bag. That's okay. I used what I could. Then got a spoon and put the crumbled chips on top of the spooned salsa. Sad, I know. Some people are addicted to crack or booze. I'm addicted to salsa.

Here's the recipe with pictures for the recipe impaired.

First the ingredients:

1 regular sized can of petite diced tomatoes (plain, no garlic or any other added spice. Sometimes it's hard to find it just plain.)
1/2 can of crushed tomatoes (28 oz can)
1/2 to 3/4 fresh cilantro chopped
1/2 white onion chopped
salt
garlic powder
lemon juice
chipotle peppers in adobo sauce

Fresh cilantro is the key. Smell it at the grocery store. Not all cilantro is equal. Use only the fresh and aeromatic bunch. Dried cilantro will not substitute well. Trust me.

Now use a chopper (I use the Pampered Chef one) to chop it up. I use the stems and all. I've made it without the stems and it just doesn't seem as cilantro-y to me.












Put the petite diced tomatoes and crushed tomatoes into a bowl and add the cilantro.












Now, grab your white onion and chop it in half. You will want to chop up at least half. You may want to use more depending on how big the onion is.









Just don't do like I do and try to chop too much at one time to save time. It doesn't save any time because then you have to dig the chunks of onion out of the blades. Meh.




Now, add your onions to the tomatoes and cilantro. Grab your garlic powder and coat the top of the bowl (probably about 1 tsp.) and then do the same with the salt (about 1 tsp.) It's really a personal preference. You can always add more but you can't take it out. :)

Then, grab your lemon juice and give a squeeze until the you need to squeeze the bottle to let in air. You're done. This is true for the smaller bottle of juice. Do about half a squeeze for the larger bottle.

Now comes the critical part. If you haven't used chipotle peppers in adobo sauce before, you better taste a little before you add it. If you don't know what it tastes like, it is extremely spicy. I usually use 2-4 baby teaspoons in mine. Again...you can add more but there's NO WAY that you can take it out. I usually add it and then let it simmer for a while and then taste whether I need to add some more. My friend Kristy is just nuts. She adds the entire peppers in there. I think that her taste buds are dead. Seriously.

These are my favorite chips to eat. They're multigrain. Bonus. And, they're delicious. Even Ken likes them. Bonus!











Now, just one more thing to make. And, you're all set. And, no...I didn't make this margarita. I'm too lazy. I usually just grab a beer. :o)

Enjoy your salsa and chips!