Authentic Homemade Fire Roasted Mexican Salsa!

This salsa makes me angry. It makes me angry because I have been paying $4 for little jars of salsa for year and years, and now I find out that making your own big jar of salsa is not only delicious and easy, but it's also dirt cheap! Do you have access to some tomatoes, garlic, onions, and jalapeno peppers? Then you have the making of some great salsa on your hands.

This being me, I am also excited to have more control over the ingredients, and I can keep out nasty villains like corn syrup, excessive sodium, and preservatives, and risky chemicals like BPA or whatever else they use to line cans and jar lids. But that's just me and my ever lasting quest to get more healthy food into my family!

I have only made this one way, but I like to think that this is a good base recipe for making different flavors of sauce. Here are some suggestions for flavors:

Three Pepper: Add 3 cored bell peppers to roasting pan, in red, orange, and yellow
Garlic Chipotle: Replace jalapeno with 1 - 2 canned Chipotle peppers (depending on how spicy you want it) and 1 tsp adobo sauce. Increase garlic to 5-6 cloves
Pineapple: Add 2 thick slices cored fresh pineapple, or 1/2 a cup drained canned pineapple
Spicy Smoky Peach: Add 1 fresh peach, slices in half and pit removed, and replace jalapeno with 1/2 a chipotle pepper + adobo (or more if you like it hot!)
Double Chipotle: Add 1 - 2 canned chipotle peppers + adobo sauce, and 1 teaspoon smoke chipotle chili powder

Authentic Homemade Fire Roasted Mexican Salsa Recipe
adapted from Everyday Food, June 2011

Ingredients
4-5 ripe tomatoes, sliced in half, and seeds removed
2-4 jalapeno peppers, tops cut off, and seeds removed (use your discretion here - if you like your salsa mild, use one pepper with the seeds removed. It you like it really spicy, do 4 peppers with the seeds still in, since that's the spiciest part.
2 cloves garlic, skin on
1 large white onion, peeled and cut in half
1 bunch cilantro, roughly chopped (about 1 cup loosely packed)
lime juice
sea salt
cracked black pepper
additional pepper if desired, such as cayenne or chipotle

1. Turn on oven broiler. A gas stove is best, since you will get that awesome flame kissed flavor, but an electric stove will work too. Place tomatoes and onion cut side down on a rimmed baking sheet, along with garlic and jalapenos. broil 5-10 minutes, until tomatoes and onions are softened and charred (if garlic begins to burn, remove it early). Remove from boiler, and let cool to handle.

2. Roughly chop tomatoes, onion, and jalapenos, and peel garlic. Place in a food processor. Pulse until smooth. Add chopped cilantro, the juice of 1 lime (about 1.5 tablespoons), sea salt, pepper, and chili (if using), and pulse until incorporated. Taste, and correct seasoning. Serve immediately, or transfer to a container, and refridgerate up to 4 days (or, you could can it and stock your pantry!) enjoy!

Heirloom Tomatoes with Creamy Gorgonzola Dressing

Look! More tomatoes I did NOT grow in my garden! Yes, friends, I am still feeling cranky that I have 21 tomato plants taking up real estate in the backyard, and it's August and still not a single tomato harvested, forcing me to purchase tomatoes from the store. CURSES. Although today one tomato started to blush a little yellow. Could this be the beginning of the bushels or tomatoes I had hoped for?? My heart is going pitter pat even at the thought.

On the bright side of things, look what a fabulous tomato salad you can make, even if you have to buy your tomatoes from the grocery store! And OH MY GOD. I totally wasn't even intending to blog this, it being the first time I had made the dressing and I didn't even bother to take pictures as I made it, but honestly people, THIS SALAD BLEW MY MIND. The tomatoes and the dressing and the seasonings all blend together into a perfect harmony of contrasts and compliments and I just about passed out after the first bite I was so overwhelmed with the tangy creamy sweet sour goodness. This tomato salad was so good that it was equal to, if not better than, the salad that allegedly cured my infertility nearly two years ago this month.

Please, I beg you, even if you don't like tomatoes, please try this. It just might be the best salad in the whole wide world.





Heirloom Tomatoes with Creamy Gorgonzola Dressing
adapted from the recipe by Ina Garten

The best place to find heirloom tomatoes is probably your local farmer's market, but I bought these at Trader Joe's and I thought they were delicious. Whatever you do, just make sure that the tomatoes you choose are fully ripe when you eat them; if they are white or mealy in the center, they are not worth eating.

Ingredients
3 pounds heirloom tomatoes, mixed colors and sizes
kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
1/2 pound Gorgonzola cheese, divided in half
1 cup good mayonnaise
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat leaf parsley


slice and core tomatoes, cutting the large ones into thick slices, and halving cherry tomatoes. Arrange on platter, and sprinkle liberally with salt, pepper, and parsley.

In the bowl of a food processor, combine half the Gorgonzola, 1 cup mayonnaise, 1/2 cup cream, and 2 tablespoons vinegar, as well as 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Process until combined, but still chunky.

Drizzle the dressing over the tomatoes. Crumble the rest of the blue cheese, and serve at room temperature. Enjoy!

Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes

See these tomatoes? These are tomatoes I did NOT grow in my garden. Even though I have 21 tomato plants growing in my back yard, I haven't harvested a single tomato all summer. NOT ONE. This has officially been the coldest, grayest, most gloomy summer ever, and I have hardly a thing ripe in my garden, other than pickles, even though it's nearly mid-August.

If you happen to hail from somewhere other than the promise land, then you may not know that in Southern California, and particularly in the beach cities, we usually experience what we call "June Gloom" during the first few weeks of the summer. It's overcast and cool, and on particularly heavy days in can even sprinkle a little bit of rain. It usually clears up by July 4th and everyone spends the rest of the summer lying around scantily clad and eating gelato, riding beach cruisers, and getting enviably tan. This summer, we have all been bundling up in parkas and wondering if the sun will ever shine again.





So I didn't grow these tomatoes. The weather? She is not so cooperative this summer. I am only a tiny little bit cranky about this.

I don't know about you, but I have of sort of devotion to fire roasted diced tomatoes. I love them with the burning love of a thousand suns. Whenever a recipe calls for canned tomatoes, my heart leaps just a little bit because I am just so! in! Love! with that smokey, caramelized yumminess. Lately, though, we have been forgoing many recipes calling for canned anything, because a new study has shown that bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical in the plastics used to line the interior of food cans, leaches into food. BPA is an estrogen mimicker and an endocrine disruptor, and can be especially harmful for babies and young children. It is associated with cancers, early puberty, low sperm count, infertility, heart disease, obesity, and developmental problems such as ADD. It has been banned from baby and toddler bottles in 5 states, and legislation for a similar ban is working its way through California's political machine even as I type this. If you or your children consume canned and packed foods on a regular basis, you are likely exposing yourself and your children to BPA, and in amounts that are high enough to affect your family's health. Scary, right?




Canned food? We don't really eat it anymore. And yes, I could buy the fancy organic canned tomatoes in the enamel lined can from the health store, and I do buy then when I need some canned tomatoes in a pinch. But the health food store is on the other side of town, and making the extra trip can be a bit of a hassle, and OMG it almost gives me a heart attack to pay $5 for a can of tomatoes. Plus, how cool is it to make your own?? Super cool.

You could can these the traditional way (I give directions below), freeze them, or just make small batches, store them in the fridge, and eat them as a summer treat. They are fantabulous on top of salmon. Whatever you decide to do, there couldn't be a easier, cheaper, or healthier way to make your own fire roasted, diced tomatoes. BPA-free and all :)






Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes

Ingredients
tomatoes
lemon juice (optional)


Preheat grill or broiler. Halve tomatoes or slice into thick wedges. Scrape seeds out with a spoon or the tip of your finger (I forgot to do this for this batch, so there are lots of seeds in the photos).


Grill or broil tomatoes, until they are softened and slightly charred. Remove from heat, and let cool. Remove skins - they should just peel right off, easy.


Pack into sterilized canning jar, and add 1 TBS of lemon juice for every cup of tomatoes (this is to make sure the ph level of the jars is correct, given the offchance there are some botulism spores in your jars. If you are freezing your tomatoes or planning on consuming them right away, you can skip this step).


Add a little water so the jars are full up. Screw the lids on the jars, and process in a water bath (boil in a pot with water 1" over the tops of the jars) for 40 minutes. Remove jars from water, and let cool. If the jars have sealed properly, the jar lids will dimple down, and they can be stored in your pantry all winter long, up until next summer, when you get to make some more with next tomato crop. Enjoy!

Classic Homemade Barbecue Sauce

I went to pick up some barbecue sauce at the grocery store the other evening, and I was absolutely appalled by the selection. When you have dietary restrictions, it's important to read the back of the bottle carefully, just to make sure, you know, there's nothing in it that will kill you. I spent almost an hour in the barbecue sauce isle reading the backs of bottles, trying to find something I could eat. My criteria was simple: no gluten (so no soy sauce, mysterious "modified food starch," or barley malt syrup) and no corn syrup. I don't know about you, but slathering my barbecued ribs with corn syrup doesn't exactly sound appetizing to me.

There were only about a million different brands and flavors, but I could only find one sauce, that was gluten-free and corn syrup free. Only one! And almost every sauce had corn syrup as the first ingredient, meaning there was more corn syrup in the sauce than tomatoes, vinegar, or any other flavoring.

Ew.

And that ONE sauce that was gluten-free and not made out of corn syrup? I kid you not, it cost $7 for 1.5 cups of sauce. Even the mom and pop brands contained gluten, corn syrup, and a host of other preservatives. I bought that $7 sauce because it was the night before our father's day barbecue, and I didn't have any other options at that point, but I knew there had to be a better way.

And oh, there is a better way.

A much, much better way.




In retrospect, making your own barbecue sauce is a no-brainer. It's simple, it's delicious, it goes together with minimal effort, and it costs a fraction of price of those inferior, corn-syrupy sauces. And did I mention just how powerfully tasty it is? This sauce is so good, it had me licking the spoon... and the bowl.

This recipe is a fantastic starting point for different flavors - mix a little honey into it and BBQ over hickory chips, and you honey hickory sauce. Mince some chipotle peppers, and you have spicy smoky chipotle BBQ sauce. The possibilities are endless.

Classic Homemade Barbecue Sauce

This recipe makes about 6 cups of sauce - more than enough for one barbecue. You can can or freeze the leftovers, or mix in new flavorings and save it in your fridge for your next grilling session. That is, if you aren't caught standing in front of the fridge, slurping it out of the jar. Not that I've done that. Since yesterday. I promise.


Ingredients
4 cans (14 oz) fire roasted, diced tomatoes (you can use regular canned diced tomatoes, but I think the fire roasted kind just add a whole other dimension of flavor)
3 medium yellow onions (about 3 cups chopped)
6 garlic cloves
1/3 cup vegetable or safflower oil
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/3 cup unsulfered molasses
1/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup white vinegar
2 tablespoons Worcester sauce
4 teaspoons salt



Chop 3 yellow onions.



Mince 6 garlic cloves.



Heat 1/3 cup vegetable or safflower oil in a large cast iron pot, and add the onions and garlic. Saute until softened and beginning to brown.



Add 1 teaspoon kosher salt,



and 1 teaspoon chili powder,



and 1/4 teaspoon cumin, and another 1/4 teaspoon coriander.



Finally, add 1/3 cup molasses...



... and 1/3 cup dark brown sugar.



Mix them all up together, and boil for 3 minutes.



Open up your 4 cans of tomatoes...



...and get 3/4 cup of apple cider vinegar.



Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmer on medium low for 2-3 hours...



... until sauce has thickened and darkened.




Add 1/4 cup white vinegar...




... and 2 tablespoons Worcester sauce. Season to taste with salt and pepper (about 1 tablespoon of each).




Place sauce in blender, add 2 cups of water (more if needed) and puree until smooth.




Store in a few jar... slather all over some BBQ... slurp it out of a jar... enjoy!       

Chicken Tortilla Soup with Lime and Sundried Tomatoes

Let's say you want to feed a family with one chicken breast. And let's say that you also want to to feed them something nutritious, with lots of whole foods and fresh ingredients. And lets ALSO say that whatever you make, it has to taste AMAZING. Well do I have a recipe for YOU!

When Nate and I got married (has it been 3 years already?) my parents gave us a week at a timeshare in Cancun, Mexico. If you are like me, you like to pack your vacations as full of activities and sightseeing as possible. Mayan pyramids! Freshwater lagoons! Underground rivers! Swimming with Dolphins! Jet skis! Snorkeling! Dancing! Dining!



But not this time. If you have ever been through the insanity of a wedding, you know that once the rings are on and the gown is off, all you want to do is lay on a white sandy beach for a week and chilaaaax. Which is exactly what we did. Every day we got up at noon, wandered down to the palapa for a quick bite, and then spent the rest of the day zoned out on a beach chair, piña coladas in hand. Oh, I suppose occasionally we also, I don't know, read a novel or two as well. It was kind of heavenly.

One of the great things about Mexico is, well, Hot Damn! Do they have great Mexican food! We had some pretty amazing meals while we were there. But honestly, I think one of my favorite meals from that trip was the tortilla soup we had at the palapa every day. It's simple, requires few ingredients, is healthy and low in calories (if you care about those things!), and packs a lot of punch in the flavor department. Limes. Sundried tomatoes. Queso Fresco. It's kind of amazing. Don't trust me? Try it. You'll like it!

Chicken Tortilla Soup with Lime and Sundried Tomatoes

In this recipe I had to use "mexican cheese blend" because, well, when you have a newborn baby you can't exactly just run out to the store everytime you forget something. So I had to make do. If you CAN find it near you, I recommend buying "queso fresco" a mild and crumbly fresh Mexican cheese. If you can't find it that's ok: a mild cheddar should do you just fine.

SOUP INGREDIENTS
1 quart low sodium chicken stock
1 chicken breast
4 corn tortillas, slightly dried out (just leave them out while you do other stuff)
1 can fire roasted tomatoes
1 jalapeño (optional) seeded and minced
1 medium onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
2 large juicy limes
2 splashes olive oil
kosher salt
freshly cracked pepper
1 pint cherry tomatoes
queso fresco

OTHER OPTIONAL TOPPINGS
avocado cubes
chopped cilantro


RECIPE
preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pat the chicken breast dry, then add a splash of olive oil to chicken. Salt an pepper liberally on both sides, and roast in over for 25 - 30 minutes until golden and cooked through.


Meanwhile, heat a splash of olive oil in a large heavy bottomed cast iron pot (a regular soup pot us ok too). Saute onions, garlic, and jalapeño in the oil until just golden.

Add the stock to the pot.

And add the fire roasted tomatoes.

Add the juice of two limes. Mmm. Limes. Yummy. Bring to a simmer.

Remember that chicken? Bring it out of the oven, and let it cool down for 10 - 15 minutes, until it's cool enough to handle. Then, shred that sucker. Use two forks. It's easy!

When it's done, it should look like this. Add that to the pot with the stock. Ok.

THE END. Goodbye.

Just kidding.

Oh yeah. Toppings. DUH. Remember those tomatoes? We are going to roast them! Cut them all in half, and toss them with a splash of olive oil, some kosher salt, and some pepper. Roast them in the over at 200 degrees. When they are chewy (40 minutes or so?) they are done.

Slice the tortillas into matchstick thin slices.

Until they look like this.

Saute them in a little oilve oil on high heat, until they are crunchy.

Ok. NOW you are done.

Unless you want some other stuff. Like avocados. Or cheese. Oh, and those tomatoes? I was totally going to take a picture of them. But I ate them all before I could. They were really good. No. Really, REALLY good.

To assemble, ladle soup into bowls. Top with tortilla strips (don't add the tortilla strips until JUST before serving. Otherwise they will get soggy. Ad nobody like soggy tortillas. Yuck.) Top with tomatoes, cheese, avocado, whatever.



Enjoy!

Picking the Perfect Tomato

If you had told me a year ago that come next March, I would be nine months pregnant with my very own bouncing baby belly, well, I would have laughed at you. Moi? Pregnant? Doctors have been telling me for YEARS that's never going to happen. I have been blessed cursed given an especially infertile body. Since I was about 16 the message has been clear: NO BABIES. I always thought that when the time came for children, I would just skip the whole heart-rending saga of failed rounds of fertility treatments and adopt.

This does have something to do with tomatoes. I promise.

Have you ever eaten a perfectly ripe heirloom tomato, picked that very morning? I think a ripe heirloom tomato is sure proof that God loves humankind. If we could all just stop fighting wars, destroying the planet, wrecking the economy, and grow tomatoes instead, I think there would be more peace on Earth. The perfume is so sweet, the texture so melting, the taste so intensely pleasurable it's (forgive me) orgasmic. Eat a plate of them, and you'll want to lean back in your chair, close your eyes, and moan with pleasure.

And that's exactly what I did when I ate THE BEST TOMATO SALAD EVER in my life. We were in San Francisco for a week, and we were eating at a restaurant in North Beach. It was early August so we sat outside under twinkly lights drinking California red wine and watching what seemed like the the whole city walk by. And then, this salad: perfectly ripe, thinly sliced red, yellow, orange and black heirloom tomatoes, drizzled with olive oil and mild vinegar, chopped fresh basil and crumbled blue cheese. Really, a very simple salad. But the tomatoes. Oh, the tomatoes. They were blissfully good. There was a lot of sighing. Quite a lot of happy contentment. Maybe even some moaning. And at the end of the night we staggered arm in arm back up the hill to our hotel, tipsy and happy and at peace with the world.

And that was the night the baby was conceived.

Infertile woman conceives baby? Infertile woman eats BEST HEIRLOOM TOMATO SALAD EVER? Coincidence? I THINK NOT. That was one, powerful salad folks. Never underestimate the potency of fresh, local food.

(See? I told you babies and tomatoes had something to do with each-other.)

Since then I have been craving that salad, not only for its magical fertility properties, but also because it was just so good. You know what I found? A good tomato is hard to find. In fact, it's almost impossible to find a really perfect, heirloom tomato. Supermarkets don't carry them. Farmer's markets are better bets, but not always reliable. No: the only was to pick the perfect heirloom tomato, to have it fresh and alive and glowing for your table, is to grow it yourself.

So that's what I'm going to do. And you should too.



Picking the Perfect Tomato: Grow Your Own

Tomatoes can be grown anywhere, in almost any climate. And you don't need to have a big yard or live on a rural farm to have some fabulous tomato plants. If you live in a small apartment in the middle of the city, you can still grow tomatoes. All you need is a sunny spot (maybe your deck, patio, rooftop, or a sunny window), some seeds, and an an EarthTainer, which you can make yourself with supplies from your local hardware store.

I myself have a yard, but I'm going to be using the EarthTainers, if simply because they are so simple to use and conserve water so efficiently (we are in a drought, after all!). I am also going to be buying my tomato seeds from TomatoFest.com. I'm not affiliated with this website in anyway, I just think they are a great, local company, and I really love what they are doing! They have a fantastic selection of heirloom tomatoes seeds, with great pictures and descriptions of each variety. They also have some great pages on how to plant and cultivate your seeds, and how to care for and maintain your plants.

So, what will be growing in my garden this summer? And what should you grown? Well, it depends on what you want, how ambitions your plans are, and how much space you have. I myself want a good variety of salad tomatoes: reds, oranges, yellows, and blacks. I also want a few kinds of cherry tomatoes. Lastly, I love, love, love making my own marinara sauce, so I want a few kinds of "paste" tomatoes so we can enjoy homemade pasta sauce all winter.

Below, I am going to share what I am ordering, but if you are feeling overwhelmed by all the possibilities and don't know where to start, TomatoFest.com offers a bunch of different seed collections, including a Short Season Collection for those growing in cooler climates, a Children's Seed Collection full of varieties sure to please kids, and a Patio Seed Collection of varieties most suited to growing in containers in limited spaces.

I myself want some really fabulous gourmet heirloom tomatoes, and I've got the space to grow A LOT of kinds, so I'm going to be ambitious this summer. (What I really want is a full garden, but being nine months pregnant, I don't think I am up to digging up the law this year and tending an enormous garden with a newborn. So tomatoes is all I get for now).

First, I want the classic heirloom tomato: the brandywine. Brandywine varieties are offered by most heirloom seed companies, and most strains seem to date from the 1880's and/or Amish country. I think I'm going with the Brandywine OTV..

I'm also going with the Black Zebra and the Green Zebra tomatoes, the yellow beefstake Hillbilly tomato, and the Amana Orange.

For Cherry tomatoes, we are going with the Blondkopfchen yellow tomatoes, and Camp Joy red cherry tomatoes.

Finally, for canning and sauce making I am going with the classic Amish Paste and the Italian San Marzano Redorta, as well as Costoluto Genovese. Finally, for making sun-dried tomatoes I am going with Principe Borghese.

So, that's me! (What? You're still here? Bravo!) How about you?

Also, this is part of the "Fight Back Friday" event over at Food Renegade. Enjoy!