Upon returning from vacation, we have found the garden to be over producing across the board.  We are inundated with tomatoes, green peppers, jalapeno peppers, onions, carrots, beans, cucumbers, peas, etc.  The solution; start making stuff.  I have already made about 10 jars of pickles and a batch of garden salsa.  The salsa came out so good, I thought I’d share.

salsa ingredients

Everything in this recipe, less the salt, lime, vinegar and olive oil was produced in our back yard.  There is something to the knowledge that this summer all of our vegetables are obtained by a mere 50 foot walk out of the kitchen door.  Growing your own food is fun, inexpensive and everything tastes really good. Plus, I feel it is good for the kids to see where the food actually comes from.  If done right, a vegetable garden takes very little maintenance during the growing season.

Here are the ingredients:

• 8-10 tomatoes, seeds removed (I used plum tomatoes)
• 1 green pepper
• 1 jalapeno pepper
• 1 lime, juiced
• 1 small onion
• 6-8 sprigs of cilantro
• 3-4 garlic cloves
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 tablespoons vinegar
• pinch of salt

Of course, everything is to taste.  The lime and cilantro seem to be the key ingredients, all else can be adjusted.  Basically, finely chop everything and mix it together in a bowl.  I put my salsa in the refrigerator for about 4 hours to let all the ingredients combine.  It may seem like the mixture is “dry” at first.  Don’t worry, the vegetables will produce enough juice to make it nice and juicy.   Just get some of your favorite tortilla chips and enjoy!

fresh garden salsa

One thing about jalapenos, the Capsaicin (active ingredent that makes the peppers hot) is on the inside wall of the pepper shell and in the seed bearing membrane.  To make the salsa “warmer” scrape the inside part of the pepper with a knife to release more heat.  Also, be careful when handeling.  While scraping the jalapeno pepper, I acidentally got some of the pepper juice on my face and nose.  This lead to a burning sensation which made my eyes water.  Then I forgot about the pepper juice on my hand and wiped my eyes, which made things much worse.  I decided to wash my face with warm water and soap, which only spread the pepper juice around more so that my entire face felt like it was on fire.  It was an unpleasent sensation and now I understand why pepper spray is an effective deterent.  I learned that the only cure for this situation is time.

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