Roasted Tomato Salsa

Fresh roasted salsa for chips, huevos or quesadillas!

Every year it is the same story.  The garden is planted and you patiently wait. You wait and wait and wait.  Then BAM! Your garden goes from barren to a super abundant crop overnight.  Suddenly you look and notice quite a lot of red poking out of the garden.  Remember those extra tomato plants you planted because you were sure you would eat all of them?  Now here we are, after the first couple weeks of harvest, and you have run out of ideas for fresh tomato recipes.

Too many tomatoes?

What should you do?  Give them away?  Maybe.  Maybe just a couple.  No way!  How can you bear to give up those juicy, deep red tomatoes you worked so hard for?!?  Forget giving them away.  There is another way to enjoy all the fruit of your labor.

Make some supremely delicious salsa instead!  I love roasting all vegetables and tomatoes are really extra good when carmelized under heat.  When you put these tomatoes in the extra hot oven, the tomatoes suffer a fast and hot kind of char.  Your tomatoes will look kinda bloodied, like they got beat up in a fight.  It was a delicious fight though.

This recipe will require your tomatoes, some pepper and onion, some time and then you will have some real roasted salsa you'll be proud to share with family and friends keep and eat all yourself.

Roasted Tomato Salsa

Ingredients:

• Approx 4-5lbs tomatoes, cut up. I use whatever is ripe.
• tomatoes that are extra seedy or pulpy should have that part discarded
• Olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 2 Pasilla or Anaheim chiles, fresh
• 2 jalapenos, fresh
• 1 onion, quartered
• 1 bunch cilantro, rough chop of tops only
• Juice of 2 limes (fresh please!)

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Place your tomatoes and onion on a piece of parchment or a Silpat on a half sheet pan.  Drizzle with olive oil to coat, but do not drench.  Add approximately 1 tsp of salt and 1/2 tsp of pepper and hand mix together. Place both Pasilla or Anaheim peppers on tray and one of the jalapenos.

Roast for 30 minutes and turn peppers over and roast an additional 30 minutes.  Remove from oven and discard onion skins.

Place peppers in large gallon zipper bag and close to steam the peppers.  After 10 minutes, remove peppers and the skin should fall right off.  Rinse seeds and stem away under water.

Place tomatoes, onions and all juices, along with peppers into food processor.  Pulse for about 10 secs at a time for a total of 30 seconds.

Finely dice remaining fresh jalapeno, remove veins and seeds.  Add to food processor along with juice of two limes and cilantro.

Pulse for 10-20 more seconds.  Check seasoning and add more salt/pepper if desired.  This salsa will thicken up a good deal overnight.

Best to eat after sitting for a few hours...with chips...and a cerveza.

Makes 3 (16oz) jars of salsa!

Roasted Tomato Salsa

Summer Bucket List

HELLO SUMMER!

Every summer it seems we "forget" to go do or go see one some of our favorite summer activities.  July starts and before we know it, BAM we missed something.

This year, I got the kids together and we created our very own summer bucket list.  We thought of all of the usual things we love to do, like the beach, camping and going to water parks.  Then we thought of new things we want to try like visit the shuttle, go to the mud adventure park and go up in the Great Park Orange balloon!

We are planning more hikes with Milo the dog!

In total we listed about 20-25 things we hope to do this summer. With all of the "Things To Do" lists that are coming out this month, it is the perfect time to pick what you want to do and make your own Bucket List for the fridge.  Kids love helping to make this list and really love seeing the progress as you cross off more and more.

How about a sunset dinner?

I can't wait to see how much we really get done this summer.  The schedule is already packed, starting with the day after school through the end of August.  While we have many things scheduled, the list will actually help us on those lazy days of summer too.  Just when my kids get ready to say they are bored, they can pick a hike up the canyon or a bike ride through the harbor to keep occupied.

We are sooooooo ready for summer!

Dog Days of Summer

The heatwave broke this week...finally.  For those of you snickering at my complaint of high 80's at the beach, please keep in mind that homes near the beach don't have A/C!

So while I relished the opportunity to put on my makeup without sweating like a piggy-piggy, I quickly figured out that my kids don't like swimming when the pool gets cold.  If you live in California, you know that  power bills are outta sight and we try not to heat the pool too often.

Thanks to a Living Social deal, I decided to take the kids over to Pump It Up! to burn off some energy during open play time.  Yes, my kids are a bit bigger, but they play very nicely with others and loved it.

Kids were very happy to jump, bounce and race around.  I loved the inherent safety of knowing they were in an enclosed space where I wouldn't lose them.(it's tiring always counting:  1...2........3 heads)

Big Sister gets a try

This was quickly replaced by "How High Can You Spin While Jumping?"

Even Big Bro loved it

They mostly had a great time.  I think my only reservation about the experience was that my kids were forced to sit through a "safety video" of the do's and dont's and I think they were the only ones in the play room that were aware there were rules (adults included!).  My kids take safety stuff kind of seriously and got really upset when kids were breaking the rules and even more upset when 7 year old kids were yelling, shoving and pushing my 9 and 10 year olds down.  I call that the "Communal Parenting Waiver".  Anytime there is a group of kids together, most parents immediately abandon any claim to their kids and assume that all the other parents there will be watching them and disciplining the kids for them.  Frustrating...but very common.

At least my kids knew better than to retaliate!  They get bonus points for showing incredible self-control today!