A couple weeks ago NGHubby came home from Costco with a huge bag of jalapenos — HUGE.  I had talked quite a bit recently about trying to make salsa with a real jalapeno (normally I cheat with Rotel).  So, with a huge bag of jalapenos, I had a great chance to give it a whirl (and another whirl, and another, and another…).  I experimented a bit and came to the following recipe that was awesome — if you can take the opinion of this German-Irish girl — and much like I’m used to eating at restaurants.

Salsa from Scratch

• 3 roma tomatoes, diced
• 1 jalapeño, diced – Include seeds proportionate to how hot you can handle your salsa.  I used about half of the seeds from the jalapeno
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon cilantro, chopped
• Juice of 1 lime
• Dash of cumin
• Dash of salt
• Dash of sugar
• Normal people would also include some onion – maybe 1/2 of an onion.  That’s if you, unlike me, don’t have anybody in your household deathly afraid of onions.

Chop the tomatoes and jalapeno (and onions, if you choose) and throw it all into a food processor or blender.  Pulse until the tomatoes are close to the consistency you want — I was going for restaurant type consistency, so you want to be careful not to over-pulse.  Add the rest of the ingredients and pulse just enough to integrate everything.  Finally, pour it all into a pretty bowl and serve with some nice chips.  Or eat it all right there before anyone else arrives.  Whatever suits your fancy.

Now for my next problem – what to do with the other 34 jalapenos left in the bag?  We have eaten jalapenos in and on just about everything this last week.  So I’ll give you a few more great jalapeno recipes as soon as I can replicate them.

Hasta luego!