The garden is producing at a rate that is out of control!  In an effort to not waste a bit, I decided salsa was in order.

We are not big salsa eaters, but once in a while, we do use it and I prefer to not buy it from the store.  I know what’s in mine and like it best that way!

To start, I harvested the tomatoes, jalapeno, onion and garlic.  They were beautiful and supple in their freshness.  I cleaned them off and got to work.

Orange Tomato Salsa with Roasted Garlic

• 2# give or take fresh tomatoes
• 1 jalapeno pepper
• 1/2 large onion
• 4-8 cloves of roasted garlic (depending on your love of garlic!)
• 1 T Apple Cider Vinegar
• 1 T honey
• black pepper, to taste
• Chipotle Hot Sauce, to taste, optional

I first heated the oven to around 375 F and cleaned the garlic and separated the cloves. Some of the skins came off, some didn’t.  I put them all in together in a pan lined with tin foil and tossed with EVOO.  I then wrapped them up loosely in the tin foil to make a packet and put in the oven for about 30 minutes.  At the 30 minute mark, I turned off the heat and just let them stay in the oven for about 15 minutes.  I worked on the rest of the prep while the garlic was getting lovely.

I prepared the onion as usual, quartering it and using only about half of the onion.  It was a large red onion and I only used about half of it.  I put the two quarters into my never-before-used food processor and shredded.  A fine mince is also acceptable!

For the tomatoes, since I’m not a fan of the skins, I brought a large pan of water to a boil and prepared a bowl of ice water.  Meanwhile, I cored out the stem area.  I then dunked the tomatoes into the boiling water for a minute or until the skin started to curl and then used a slotted spoon to transfer from the boiling water to the ice water.  I then roughly diced the tomatoes.

The jalapeno was last.  I removed the seeds from half the pepper and chopped the other half with seeds to keep some spice.  I didn’t want the spice to over-power the salsa, but didn’t want it to taste like tomato sauce either!

With all my materials at the ready, I used my food processor to blend one half of the roughly chopped tomatoes with the onion, garlic and jalapeno.  This mixture was then added back into the other half of the roughly chopped tomatoes and gently mixed with the apple cider vinegar, honey, black pepper and Chipotle hot sauce.

Et voila!  Super fresh and lovely salsa!

I plan to can most of it up tomorrow after I snag some more half pint canning jars from my mother’s!

I hope everyone who tries this enjoys it!  Remember too, that most salsa has cilantro, so if you like cilantro, go ahead and add a 1/4 cup minced!  My honey and I are both ‘tasters‘ and cilantro ends up making everything taste like soap to us, so I steer clear!