So, we probably don’t hammer home this point nearly enough! We certainly talk a lot about preservation and methods we use to make our garden last all year. But, we want to make it a point to talk about “eating fresh” at least once! (And we do it all the time!)
One of my favorite ways to eat fresh from the garden is by making salsas. Some likely think this is something you need a recipe for and that there’s some precision related to it. The word salsa in Spanish simply means “sauce.” And by “sauce,” that just means chopped up tomatoes, onions and peppers.
Here’s the basics of salsa. There are no hard and fast rules, you can do whatever as long as it involves tomatoes, onions and peppers.
We usually start with roughly a 3 to 1 ratio of tomatoes to onions as our starting point. But, it can be any desired ratio and this isn’t something to get caught up in. For peppers, any pepper is a go-to. We like it somewhat spicy! Play it safe with jalapeno, hit harder with serrano or if you really want to light it up, we add Bulgarian Carrot peppers. If you really want it to rip your face off, go hard on the peppers! If you’re not a spicy fan, stick to sweet peppers like Shishito or Lunchbox. It’s all good in salsa land! And that’s your salsa base.
From here, there’s a few additions that will really make salsa sing. Salt and pepper are your bread and butter, as usual. The salt draws out moisture from the fruit and adds huge flavor, the pepper gives a very light spice. Again, if you like to spice it up, the entire world of powdered peppers are at your disposal. A little bit of lime juice will add acidity and bring out massive flavor. Cilantro is right at home, offering a bit of citrus and zest. You can do crazy stuff to your salsa like add in fruit, carrots, dried peppers and so on for additional flavor layers.
For consistency, we really like the “salsa fresca” route, sometimes called Pico de Gallo (which in a weird flex means rooster’s beak?). Basically, that means rough chopped. You can also blend it or put it into the food processor, typically bringing it to a semi-chunky consistency. If you’re going the full on sauce route, you can certainly recreate one of those old “Will It Blend?” commercials and pulverize it into pure liquid. All of these are salsa.
And yeah, we know all about those “specialty” salsas that slightly bend the above rules. Things like verde, macha, bruja, mole and cacahuate. Salsa is awesome, there’s a reason it’s popular world wide! But, we’re trying to focus on teaching you how simple it really is.
Oh, and one last thing. Salsas are where a lot of our cherry tomato crop goes. Cherry tomatoes aren’t the best for preservation, since the skins must be removed and that’s straight annoying for such small tomatoes. Salsa is a great way to burn up those cherry tomatoes as they start to put on heavy loads.
Eating fresh ensures you get the maximum nutrition from your food. Not just that, but as far northerners, this helps keep us sane. Our access to fresh, quality produce in the winter can be outright dismal at times and the summer months are the ultimate time to correct that situation! This is a huge reason why we grow!
So, we’d encourage you to stop overthinking salsa and just make salsa. Heck, if you’re not currently growing, try to grow a salsa garden in some containers next year! Tomatoes, peppers and onions…that’s one way to food bliss!
