Salsa? Yes, please.

Fresh salsa with a tequila splash.

I'm a salsa nut.  I love it all.  Well, ok that's not true, I can be pretty picky - especially when it comes to store bought salsas.  Most of them are not so good.  My mom makes a really good salsa.  She grows her own tomatoes and jalapenos and bakes up a huge batch and cans it all.  Then she kindly mails me jars and jars.  One day, I want to can my own but for now, I've been making due with fresh salsas.  If I'm honest, I make them a lot.  Every now and again I even splurge on that icky but ooh so tasty Tostitos brand cheese dip, you know the one I'm talking about.  Yum.  

Just as important as a good salsa, are the tortilla chips.  Unfortunately, ALL my local stores seem to have stopped carrying my favorite brand.  I can't find them anywhere.  

Stop and Shop, my local store, has replaced them with a new brand, Grande something, priced at 2 for $6, that are tasty enough but the bottom 2/3rds of the bag are ALL crumbs.  I have enough crumbs in my pantry to make a million taco salads.  So I'm frustrated.  Luckily, Shaws, another local store, had Tostitos on sale buy one get one free, which is worth the $5 price tag.  I love Tostitos, but they're freaking expensive! I dislike having to sale shop for staples, and tortilla chips are clearly a staple.

Last night's salsa was my basic, nothing fancy, 10 minutes and your done. Here's what I did:

Ingredients:

1 can petite cut tomatoes (I guess I do cheat a little here, real fresh salsa would use fresh tomatoes, but these are soo much easier to keep in the pantry)
1 or 2 Jalepeno/Serrano/pepper(s) of your choice.  I can never remember which are which but 2 give me the perfect amount of heat.
2 or 3 garlic cloves.
Small bunch of green onions
Cilantro to taste
dash of Tequila

Cut open your peppers and remove or keep the seeds, depending on how spicy you want your salsa.  I usually throw out most of them.  If your peppers are older, be careful, the juice can irritate your fingers and make them burn! I found that out the hard way.

Dice the peppers and the garlic.

Chop them in a food processor with a dash of Tequila, it adds great flavor!

You can play around with texture and level of puree, my little processor has a fine line between chopped and complete puree, a few chunks are fine with me.

Open your petite cut tomatoes and drain the juice.  If you have the time and energy, you could always sub in real tomatoes, peeled and diced. 

While the tomatoes are draining, chop the green onions.

Add the tomatoes, green onions, a handful of cilantro and salt and pepper to taste.

Blend.

Add more salt and/or pepper to taste.  A dash of lime is also great and dig in! 

I also made shrimp tacos with pepper and onions for me and chicken tacos for J.