Good Neighbor Salsa

Hello all! We are back home and ready to finish out the summer!

Miles and I had a wonderful little get away together to Oregon so he could perform the wedding of a very special person! She was one of our former youth long ago when we still lived in the bless-ed Pacific Northwest!! That place is just in my bones. I do so love me an evergreen tree, the mountains and snow covered volcanoes, no humidity, and no mosquitoes biting the tar out of me as we dined in the evening sun of the backyard for the rehearsal dinner. We got to spend time with dear old friends, even the ones responsible for setting me and Miles up, and had so much fun with all the wedding festivities and just being alone together! We really need to do things like this more often so we can remember just how much we like each other!

A few wedding pics before we dive into a recipe.............

The Bride and Groom

The weather could not have been better and do you see those mountains in the background??? I love them!

The love of my life! I love going to weddings. It reminds me of how blessed I am to truly be married to my best friend. Plus this time since he was the one performing the wedding, I was also reminded of what an incredible, God-honoring, catch of a man he is as he spoke about the importance of a high biblical view of marriage!

I love the excitement on Melanie's face! Both the bride and groom made it such a fun wedding with their expressions of pure joy at finally being husband and wife!

Okay I will stop babbling now and move on to some food!

So here is the story with the salsa. Miles left Tuesday to take the kids to his parents house. He came back Wednesday morning and we left as soon as I got home from working for the Cities to spend the day and night before we flew out. So I came home Tuesday evening from running last minute errands to find this on my deck...........

Six of the best, fresh from the garden, perfectly ripe tomatoes! Two thoughts went through my mind. First, I have the best neighbors!!! Second, oh crud! These will be bad by the time we get back and double crud because that means I have to make salsa tonight and I don't really have time!

But I couldn't let those awesome tomatoes go to waste and I didn't want to give them to anyone else because I was feeling selfish and because I didn't have time to deliver them to someone else. So salsa it was! I had a few peppers left from the Farmer's Market that needed to be used up anyway. This all needed to happen very fast that I am really surprised I even took pictures.

I very roughly diced those peppers up and left the rest to the food processor.

In the food processor I had already dumped my chopped up tomatoes, juice of one lime, cilantro, red onion, garlic, salt, cumin, Stevia, and can of diced chiles.

I was a bit worried that my peppers weren't going to fit in there. I was pretty close to the maximum fill line. But I had no time to figure something else out.

So I dumped the peppers right on top and pushed everything down a bit. I knew it would reduce really quickly.

I pulsed it probably 10 generous pulses or so and it looked like this.

Then I added one can of tomato paste to thicken it up a bit and to help take the edge off the spicy peppers. Miles likes it spicy but I like it mild so I need to try to find a happy medium for things like this.

I like my salsa very fine like this. I will eat it plenty of other ways but this is my favorite. Plus it is great like this to mix in to your guacamole or in your eggs. If you like yours a little more chunky then just pulse it less. I also like it spread on top of a salad for a wonderful dressing. Mmmmm....that might be lunch today!

I put a little in this bowl to eat for my dinner that night and then put the rest in the freezer so it didn't go bad while we were away. I do have to say though that it tasted so much better by the time we got home and the spiciness had really settled down! So you might want to plan on making this a day or two before you actually need it.

So do I have to tell you that I didn't measure anything? You know how I hate to measure and when in an extreme hurry measuring, even for the blog, just doesn't happen. So the following recipe is my best guess. Taste it when you are done and add whatever you feel is lacking. If you don't have some spicy little peppers like I had from the Farmer's Market you might want to add a little cayenne or chili powder.

Thank you to my good neighbors who share! We have the best neighbors a person could ask for. As much as I love the Northwest and would love to be back there someday, it would be hard to leave our awesome neighbors. I know it pains some of you to hear me say that since you would love it if we were moving back tomorrow!

In the mean time, enjoy these last few weeks of summer!

Good Neighbor Salsa

5-6 tomatoes, roughly chopped

1/2 - 1 red pepper, roughly diced

1/2 - 1 green pepper, roughly diced

2-4 small other peppers diced such as Anaheim, Banana, Jalapeno, Poblano

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 medium red onion, diced

1 cup cilantro

juice of one lime

1/2 tsp. salt

1-2 Tbsp. Stevia or sugar

1-2 tsp. ground cumin

1 small can tomato paste

Place all ingredients in food processor except tomato paste. Pulse 10 times or until desired consistency is reached. Add tomato paste and pulse until mixed well. Allow salsa to sit for at least an hour for flavors to develop. Store in a sealed container in the fridge for several days.