Homemade Local Salsa

So a couple weeks ago I received a banana pepper in my weekly CSA share. I didn't really know what to do with it. It sat in my fridge for a week. Then I went out of town and came back and it was still in my fridge. Hmmm what to do what to do what to do - aha SALSA!

The thing I love about salsa is that its so personal. It's like chili. Everyone has their own special, secret recipe with all the ingredients that they love.

Well that's actually not me. I've never really made homemade salsa before. My husband has tried making it a few times (note the "tried") and it never quite turned out. So it hasn't been something that we make on a regular basis. We usually just buy it. But seriously how hard can it be? Chop up a bunch of stuff and throw in a bowl. Eat with chips. Wait...was that just an insult to my husband? Sorry! :)

Plus I am about to have a large quantity of tomatoes from my garden so this would be a good practice recipe. Here's what I did:

1 tomato, medium to large
1 banana pepper
1/3 cup chopped red onion (didn't actually measure, this is just an estimate)
Cilantro leaves
1 clove garlic, pressed or chopped
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp white pepper
2 yellow cherry tomatoes, chopped

Quarter the tomato. Put one quarter into the Magic Bullet (or other food processor) and whirl until slightly liquidy but still chunky. Pour out into a bowl. Chop remaining tomato and add to bowl. Add remaining ingredients. Stir to combine and refrigerate. Let sit in fridge for a few hours to allow flavors to develop.

That's it - super easy. It just takes time to chop all that stuff up. The neat thing about this salsa is that most everything I used to make it was locally grown. The banana pepper and yellow cherry tomatoes came from my CSA shares. I bought the tomato, red onions and cilantro at the farmers' market. The only ingredients that are not local is the garlic, salt and pepper. I think that is acceptable. Even the chips I bought are local. They are Sylvia's and they are the best.


It looked a lot prettier when I first made it. It would probably look a lot better if I had it in a nice bowl instead of that old plastic container. But who cares! It tastes awesome! I'll definitely be making this again once I have tomatoes from my garden. I think I might make it in large batches and can it. What a treat in the winter!