I was really craving some salsa, so I decided to whip up some. Salsa is very easy to make and home made tastes so good you'll never want to go back to store bought. I perused the veggies in my fridge and came up with three tomatoes, a jalapeno, and a walla walla sweet onion that I had to cut the mold off. We put whatever kind of veggies we have into our salsa, and have added zucchini, broccoli, spinach, tomatillos and even asparagus before. Salsa is a great way to use up veggies that are a bit past their prime, or even a little wilted. I tossed what I had into our BBQ pan, and added two cloves of garlic.
I fired up the BBQ on medium high, put the pan on and closed the lid. The trick with this is to have the proper kind of BBQ pan, the kind with the holes. It allows the heat to come through, as well as the flavors already on the grill. After letting it grill about seven minutes, I turned the veggies over.
All together it cooked about 15 or 20 minutes, until the tomatoes were soft and the jalapeno was blackened. The blacked bits give it a lovely smokey flavor. Then it all went into the blender, although I fished the garlic out first and popped the soft garlic out of the hard garlic husk. I also added a handful of cilantro and squeezed in the juice from a lime.
Blend it up until it is the consistency you like, add salt to taste, and you have a salsa with amazing flavor! It is even better the next day. I didn't have any chips, so I used Trader Joe's rice crackers. Yum!
To finish off dinner, I BBQ'd corn on the cob and grilled up some carne preparada, a delightful thin steak that we get at our local Mexican carniceria.
Since summer is here and I have a bit more time on my hands, I'll try to keep this blog updated more frequently. We had a non heat eater living with us for awhile and we stopped cooking with jalapenos while he was here. Now we're back to the spice!
