There's nothing quite like home-cooked salsa. Canned in the midnight days of summer; the ripening days of fall; and munched down all winter long. It's kind of like canning sunshine.
Now, I'm no miser when it comes to sharing my secrets. Please enjoy this, the second post in the "DIY Series: A Beautiful Thing". Feel free to take notes, republish this to your cookbooks, and share with neighbours and friends.
Start with the freshest possible ingredients. If you're worth your salt, you'll grow your own. Organic. Free range. Pesticide free. Sung to. And petted.
Then use the best salsa recipe ever to have been salsified. "Mary's Most Amazing Salsa".
Spend several hours chopping vegetables. You weren't doing anything anyway, and its been a prolific year for tomatoes. Cut up enough for four recipes. Dash out to the store for some additional celery and onions, and weep your way to the finish line.
Spend several hours chopping vegetables. You weren't doing anything anyway, and its been a prolific year for tomatoes. Cut up enough for four recipes. Dash out to the store for some additional celery and onions, and weep your way to the finish line.
Glance at the calendar. Recognize that it's tapas Friday and you have to get your house to shiney perfection within the next three hours. Deposit the roughly 147 cups of veggies into the largest bowl you've ever imagined in your life. Glance into your kitchen fridge and surmise that the door must contain more than ten percent lycra, because there's no other possible way that it would remain closed.Remember that we have a "beer fridge" in the garage. Grip bowl in both hands and proceed to garage. Remember that your brother gave you all his leftover cabin food when he hightailed it out of the country. The beer fridge contains no beer and lots of random groceries. Definitely no room for the biggest bowl in the universe.
Reason that a concrete floor is always cold on the feet.
Reason that a concrete floor is always cold on the feet.
Place salsa on cold concrete and proceed to fumigate the house for company.
Eat.
Sip wine.
Laugh heartily at many funnies.
Go to bed really late and really happy.
Get a morning phonecall from some of my favourite people asking if I'd like to join them for a trip to the St Norbert farmers market.
Happily oblige.
Oggle colourful vegetables, finger creative button jewellery, and make some new Hutterite friends who sell their bread and baking to support an orphange in Liberia. Buy some spelt flour to embellish my image of being a tomato-growing, salsa-canning homemaker.
Stop at my sister's for a glass of wine.... some dinner.... and a movie.
Go to bed late- tired and happy.
Sunday morning, resume salsa making.
Observe that the fruit flies are having a grand feast, and that I've inadvertently grown penicillin.
Throw the whole mess into compost.
Go out for nachos and beer.
9 comments:
That is such a sad story - I might cry. Fresh grown tomatoes are God's special gift to summer. I have had 1, so far, from my 4 plants.
I certainly would do something like that - and then I would cry. All that beautiful salsa fed to the fruit flies!!!!! Tragedy extraordinaire.
Salsa is over-rated. Beer and nachos are not.
Karla
Oh but we had a grand time, didn't we? Might I add that this year I added black beans to that salsa recipe? Oh so good!
Schwester
Janice- but they're such HAPPY fruit flies! They told me!
I admit that this event (second, but not last in the series) brought my spirits down considerably. I had a bit of a personal crisis, and maybe a bit of an epiphany. Maybe that will be lesson 4 in this series.
Karla, you're the gal to party with. I wish I'd said margueritas and nachos though. With extra guac.
Mary, I omit all the little stuff out of the recipe becuse I don't feel like running to the store to get it- ei cayenne (if I don't have it) taco sauce, cornstarch, etc. I've added beans as well, the past few years. and I'll throw in any spicey peppers that might be around the place. It's always yummy. And did you know that if you use a lot of romas there's hardly any watery juice to drain off? I grow romas for that reason. Much meatier.
Yep I've done the roma thing too. And I never add cornstarch anymore because I'd get lumpy white blotches that grossed me out...so yep the nice thing about this recipe is that you can't kill it except when you leave it out for fruit flies and other bugs. Loved your story as sad as it is. Also was so happy that you chose to spend the time with us Schwesters. Today I made tomato soup with mom's recipe -- have 10 jars sitting on my counter. yum
Imagine the garden growth you will get out of such a spirited compost. You might be on the path to some very insightful gardening diy's!
cheers and carry on!
Love this series!
So good to know I'm not the only one for which things do not always go as planned.
I shall cry for you.
wine seems to be a theme. have you tried making it??
I keep getting my comments eaten - wonder if this will work.
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