restaurant salsa

The past two years have been my first real attempts at gardening.  We started quite small last year and expanded a bit this year.  Somehow, I ended up with several tomato plants both years even though we typically don't eat a lot of tomatoes. This year, I began looking for recipes to use up those beautiful red fruits.  

And what did I find? Salsa. We love salsa around here, so it seemed like a perfect solution.  I gathered up the eight tomatoes we had, searched pinterest for recipes, and ended up modifying a few into my own.  I'll admit, at first, I was a tiny bit disappointed with the results.  It just didn't seem quite right to me.  But when I pulled it out of the fridge today (after making it yesterday), it was so yummy.  I think it just needed time for the flavors to really steep together.  

Here's the recipe that I used.  I'll warn you, it has a bit of a kick to it.  I'd probably call it medium, but I guess that's all relative.

Restaurant Salsa:

8 ripe tomatoes

1/2 yellow onion

4 cloves of garlic

3 jalapeno peppers

small handful of cilantro (to taste)

salt to taste (about 1/2 tsp. I think?)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375.  Cut tomatoes into halves and place on baking sheet with the insides facing up.  Peel onion, cut in half, and place one half on baking sheet face up. Cut the caps off the jalapenos (and remove seeds and membranes if you don't want it as spicy).  Place jalapenos and garlic cloves (peeled) on baking sheet with onion and tomatoes.  Roast in the oven for about 30-40 minutes.  Allow to cool some.  In a food processor or blender, blend all ingredients to desired consistency.  Taste and adjust salt and cilantro as desired.  

I personally recommend allowing the salsa to completely chill in the fridge before serving.  It will keep for about a week in the fridge, or you can freeze it! I'm not sure about canning this particular recipe because I know that tomatoes require very specific acidity levels.

Let me know if you try it and love it as much as I do! Enjoy!