Day 264

Boy oh boy. My food processor got a better workout than I did today.

I made enough salsa to make a Mexican grandmother proud. My garden produced mostly Roma tomatoes this year, smaller than a tomato you would slice for a sandwich, yet larger than a cherry tomato you would plop in your salad. 

One of the great things about the Internet is the plethora of free recipes. Poor Betty Crocker. She used to be the ruling Queen of basic cooking and baking. If I didn't know what temperature to cook my pork chops at, I just pulled out my trusty BC cookbook and she would tell me. Now I open my IPad to AllRecipes or The Pioneer Woman websites- I even have a special tablet holder in the kitchen so I don't get tomatoes on my Apple.

Let me tell you, there are some crazy salsa recipes out there- I even saw one that had sauerkraut in it...I myself took the more traditional route, with a few creative changes and/or additions.

Now I said "creative". Which means I veered away from the recipe. Which is like breaking the law in my World of Order and Rule Following. It was almost silly how hard it was for me to do at first, almost feeling like I needed to apologize to the recipe for straying from it's orderly directions....

I started each batch with tomatoes and onion. Forty tomatoes per batch, to keep my Monkly sense of order in semblance. Fresh cilantro made it into each batch as well, but that's where consistency stopped.

I used apple cider vinegar, lime juice, and honey alternately in different batches. There is salsa with and without garlic, and with different levels of jalapeño heat, compliments of my own jalapeño plant. I even have a couple batches with fresh pineapple mixed in, a refreshing change I hope others enjoy as much as I do. I even played with different consistencies, making some thin salsa and some chunky, depending on my mood at the moment and if I got distracted while the food processor was on...

Tonight's picture represents making something familiar that has your own personal mark on it. I got a glimpse at what some chefs must go through when they create something new, hoping that others will like and appreciate their creativity and skill. It's very rare that I cook or bake anything without a recipe, so I always have the excuse that "it was the recipe's fault". Tomorrow we are having a birthday lunch for one of our doctors. Guess what I am bringing...