Cooking with Blobby

....except there is zero cooking. 

Salsa. It's a tough store buy. So many varieties and almost all of them containing some kind of cilantro, which is just a no-no for me. 

Granted, Chi-Chis salsa and the likes don't have that, but anything made to resemble non-assembly line salsa all has it. Yes - all. I've done the legwork. 

Eons ago, I had salsa at Morty's house, made by a friend of his named Dan. Who is different than the guy he was living with, also named Dan. Or even Father Dan - but let's not delve into that today. 

Dan's salsa was very clean tasting. Just veggies and fruit - as tomatoes are classified as "fleshy fruit". A little olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic. That's it. 

For the last, geeze, 29 years, I've been making a variation of this. At one point, I followed his directions to the letter and eventually did whatever the hell I wanted or what felt good or correct - which is why you will get no measurements with this post today.

But a friend had given us a lot of their homegrown tomatoes, as you can see above, and I needed to do something with them all. Salsa, it was. 

Ingredients

Tomaoes

Bell Peppers - any colour you desire

Banana Peppers - and some of its brine

Jalapeño Peppers

Red Onion

Green Onion - green and white parts

Garlic

Salt

Pepper

Olive Oil

Lime

If I recall, Dan did not have jalapeño, red onion and lime. These are things I added over time - should they be on hand. 

Preparation 

This is as easy as it gets. Clean up takes longer. 

In a food processor, the Bell, Jalapeño and pulse. I try not to get too fine, as I tend to like the texture of something not smooth.  Use a spatula to put it into a bowl. 

I will say for the jalapeño, I used two. Seeded and de-ribbed one, the other left everything in. I figured it was a lot of salsa - and it was - so the heat would be dispersed - and it was - but man, you feel the heat. 

Ditto with the onions, garlic and banana peppers. As the green onions might take one or two more pulses, I separate them from the first step, again, so the others don't break down too much. 

I forgot a tomato picture. But I generally try to use more of the meat of the tomato, so for at least half of what I'm using, I'll get rid of the seeds and surrounding juice. You'll get enough liquid from the tomato but also the olive oil. lime and banana pepper brine. 

I use very very little salt. One pinch, actually. The banana pepper brine adds some, but any chip you're using it going to add that too. 

This is what you're left with when all said and done. 

After it's all together,  Well, I had the julice of one lime, a little olive oil here and the brine - as much or as little as you'd like. Stir it up. You'll see the oil will still rise somewhat to the top, so each time you open the container, you'll want to stir it again. 

It's pretty. It's clean tasting. It smells amazing. No heavy tomato presence that you get in the store bought stuff, that sometimes borders more on spaghetti sauce thickness. 

The beauty with this recipe is, you can taste it as a whole, but still pick out each individual flavour. And as you're making it to your specific likes / tastes, you can't really go wrong. You can even add cilantro - but then you'd be doing it wrong.  : )

I remembered the problem with this salsa too. 

I haven't made it for a few years - and even then usually for parties - because I find I cannot stop eating it. There seems to be an addictive quality to it, at least for me. I don't know when to say 'no', and usually stop when / if I run out of chips. 

We are now on day three. Four when you read this. We have enough to last another 3-4 days, though honestly, we will run out of chips sometime today.