Tomatoes - Part Deux

Our tomato windfall continues here, and I finally had a half decent looking pepper come out of our garden - a jalapeno. So it was time to put two and two - or in actuality, 15 and 1 - together, and make some salsa. In my head, I hear Jerry Seinfeld's voice saying, "Excuse me, do you have any salsa?" "We need more salsa." "Where is the salsa? No salsa?"

Well, we now have salsa. It's real, and it is spectacular.



Unfortunately, my rules for salsa making are much like my rules for sauce making: as little contact with the tomatoes as possible. That eliminates pretty much all of the fresh salsa recipes out there, which is ok, because a bowl full of tomato chunks might hit the spot for some, but not me. I'm more the person who dips their chip in, soaking up the accumulating juices and avoiding any large chunks of anything- and leaving you with some dried up tomato and onion bits in the bowl. Oh yeah, that's just how I roll, baby.

I came across a recipe on All Recipes that sounded absolutely perfect to me. Like the sauce recipe I posted previously, everything gets thrown in the oven. The idea of a roasted tomato salsa sounded really good and a little different, so I was ready to give it a try.

It starts out easy enough - toss 12 whole tomatoes (I used 15 to make up for a few smaller ones from the garden), a jalapeno pepper, a quartered onion and 2 garlic cloves, still in the skin, into a baking dish. Drizzle with some olive oil. This goes under the broiler for about 10 minutes - I wanted to make sure everything was good and roasted - so I did a flip about halfway through and bumped it up to 15. It worked for me but probably unnecessary.

They come out looking... well, roasted. The smell is delightful, though. From there I took the tomatoes, cut off the top and pressed on them with the back of a chef's knife to remove some of the extra water and seeds. Leave the skins on though - it gives the salsa a bit of a smokey flavor. The tomatoes went into the food processor, along with the onions. Then I split the jalapeno in half, removed the stem, got rid of about half of the ribs and seeds and dropped it in the food processor. Same with the garlic (smash them with the back of your knife and they slide right out of the skin). A few pulses... then a few more pulses (you do recall the general distaste for large chunks, right?). Into this mix goes a nice amount of cumin, lime juice and cilantro. Stir and pop it into the fridge - unless lukewarm salsa is your thing.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.


Roasted Tomato Salsa
(adapted from allrecipes.com)

12-15 Roma (plum) tomatoes
2 cloves garlic, unpeeled
1 small onion, quartered (I used a Pennsylvania sweet onion, but I think any type would work)
1 jalapeno pepper
Olive oil to drizzle
1 teaspoon cumin (I went over this - I love me some cumin. Just adjust to your taste)
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Preheat the broiler. In a medium baking dish, place tomatoes, garlic, onion and jalapeno. Drizzle with olive oil.
Broil for 10 minutes, checking often, or until outsides of vegetables are charred.
Remove from heat. Remove and discard tomato cores, jalapeno stem (and some or all of the ribs and seeds, depending on your heat tolerance) and garlic skins.
Process the charred vegetables in the food processor. Transfer to a medium bowl, and mix in cumin, salt, lime juice and cilantro.