RECIPE: Freshencan Salsa

Salsa, I have heard, is the most popular condiment in the world. I know it gets a lot of use at our house, the hotter the better. Taking "better" to "best" requires homemade salsa, though, so it's a good thing homemade salsa is very easy to make.

I have a couple of friends who make their own salsa, and I think one of those uses everything fresh from her garden and puts it up in cans, which for those of you who aren't from the midwest United States means that she first grows the vegetables and then picks the vegetables and hauls them inside to wash the vegetables then makes her salsa, then boils some glass jars and metal lids and rings and packs the salsa into the jars being careful to leave, I don't know, air space? Then the jars are sealed and set on a shelf in the pantry and it is a long, thankless and sweaty process undertaken in the kitchen in the hottest part of the summer. If I ever attempted it myself, my entire family would be dead from botulism by the time you finished reading this paragraph.

I do the shorter method and use some canned ingredients and some fresh ingredients, hence the name "Freshencan Salsa." I don't think it's quite as good as the total-freshness of self-picked garden vegetables, but it isn't bad. In fact, it qualifies as "pretty darned good."

This recipe makes a lot of salsa, so if you don't want a lot, cut the recipe in half.

FRESHENCAN SALSA

Ingredients:
4 can tiny-dice tomatoes (I like the kind with green chilies or garlic/onion), undrained
1 can white corn, undrained
1 large white onion, finely chopped
2 jalapeno peppers, washed and finely chopped (use at your discretion, depending on how hot you like your salsa - better to add too little to begin with than to set your tonsils aflame)
approximately 1 1/2 cups chopped cilantro
4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
the juice of two limes (real limes, not that crap in the plastic lime-shaped squirter - don't make me come find you)
1 tablespoon salt
1 dashes hot pepper sauce

Directions:
Open tomato and corn cans and dump them in a large mixing bowl. Get out your food processor and throw the onion, jalapenos, cilantro and garlic into it - process until finely chopped. Scrape out of food processor into mixing bowl. Add lime juice, salt and hot pepper sauce; stir.

Allow flavors to blend for a couple of hours. Add more salt if needed. If the tomatoes are a little acidic, throw in a pinch of sugar. Serve at room temperature with chips that have been warmed in the oven (I throw a bag of chips in my roasting pan, spritz them with cooking spray, toss them, re-spritz, give them a sprinkle of salt, re-toss, and then put them in the oven at 250 degrees for about fifteen minutes.)