Salsa - Fresh, Local, NH-summer Style!

I was completely motivated by colors for the two salsa recipes that follow.

The first was all about the reds:

Barker's farm in Stratham has the most unbelievable red bell peppers this year!  I'm in heaven!  For storing, simply blacken them over a gas flame or under the broiler (rotating as needed, of course), cool, and freeze in ziplocs with their skins on.  Perfect for those winter antipasto dishes or on top of homemade grilled pizza!

For any salsa, prep your tomatoes first and set in a colander to drain. Continue with the remaining vegetables, adding to the colander accordingly. Don't salt anything yet or you'll lose precious flavor (and don't worry about the loss of liquid--remember, you want salsa, not soup). Once most of the water has been leached out, toss everything together with chopped cilantro, fresh squeezed lime, dashes of this (cumin?), dashes of that (definitely salt and pepper), and maybe a squirt of agave nectar or pinch of sugar?

Refrigerate before serving, but don't forget to taste it first! You might want to add garlic (I used a bulb of leftover roasted garlic in the green version), or more salt, or more cilantro, or more jalapeno...or corn!

The corn this summer has also been out of this world.  Blanch cobs in salted boiling water for just a few minutes, then shock in iced water, drain, dry and freeze in ziplocs for up to 6 months.  Corn chowder this winter, lookout!!

 Or beans...

Feel free to use canned beans. I just happened to have a package of dried black Turtle beans from a visit to the Newmarket Farmers' Market last winter, so I gave them a flash soak (put in a pot with lots of water, brought to a boil, killed the heat and soaked for an hour) before cooking them in a bath with a little roasted garlic and olive oil (~2hrs, during which time I prepped all those bad-boy veggies!)

You can use a food processor for making salsa, but I opt for the hand technique. I like my knife, as for this dish it's about maintaining the vibrancy of all those colors that a food processor can't quite offer.

The other version was all about my green zebra tomatoes and some local killer tomatillos!  Annaheims and poblanos gave this salsa a nifty little zing-pow.  Don't want cukes (which I seed, btw)?  Try diced melon!  Follow the same technique above.

There's no better time to roast some up tomatillos than during their height of season (in NH, late August-Sept). 

For the tomatillos, peel off the husks, rinse off the sticky enzyme that's on the fruit, dry them, toss them in olive oil, and roast/broil for ~10 minutes to char their surfaces. I actually grilled mine alongside some fresh local poblano peppers this time. Lost a little juice, but that was okay.


Serve with an array of salted tortilla chips, and dig in!

YUM! Now where's that margarita...