Salsa!

About a week ago our wonderful friends Andy and Jennifer gave us a huge bag of perfectly red and delicious homegrown tomatoes. I can't even remember the last time I saw tomatoes that looked anything close to these in the grocery store. (Note to self: grow your own garden next year.) I intended to create a wonderful dinner using these beauties, but, confession, I haven't been cooking too much dinner these days. My sister invited us over for taco salad last week and I thought, Yes! I can make salsa with my lovely tomatoes. Now, another confession, I've never actually made salsa before, but I had my brother, who spent two years in Mexico, show me the ropes.

The ingredients for the salsa are simple. Garrett said that the food he ate in Mexico wasn't at all glamorous, and keeping it simple is what the people in his areas were all about. So while I diced up about 6-8 tomatoes (I honestly didn't count), Gar was busy dicing an onion, finely chopping up a jalapeno, about a fourth of the pepper. We also minced up one clove of garlic, and a bunch of cilantro. We mixed that all together, and poured out a little bit of the juice, so we could add the juice of a half a lime. (These tomatoes were particularly juicy.) Add a little salt and pepper to taste and we had the most delicious salsa I've ever had. We topped our taco salad and burritos with it and the salsa made all the difference. I didn't even use a salad dressing!



I think this is a fool proof salsa recipe, but I must admit, I think most of the flavor came the homegrown tomatoes. So make sure your tomatoes are red, juicy and full of fresh flavor.

Garrett's Salsa
(All amounts can be adjusted to taste)
6-8 tomatoes, diced
1 yellow onion, diced
1/4 jalapeno, small dice
1 clove garlic, small dice
1 bunch cilantro (a little less than one bunch)
juice of 1/2 lime
salt and pepper

Lime Chicken

I'm always looking for easy week night meals, and now that it's warm outside I love it when I don't have to turn on the oven. This lime chicken recipe meets both those criteria. I got this recipe from my mother in law, Kathleen. We had a big taco, burrito and taco salad night at her house and she made this chicken. It was fabulous. She gave me the recipe and I finally tried it this week. It was so easy, you can just throw it in the crock pot. I even put my chicken breasts in the crock pot frozen, and it only took three hours on high. When I checked it the chicken fell apart into beautiful shredded pieces, perfect for stuffing burritos or toppping salads. We finished our burritos off with Spanish rice, black beans, guacamole, cilantro lime sour cream, tomatoes and home cooked tortillas. (We buy the ready made, but not cooked tortillas from Costco, they are amazing. Way less work then making them yourself, but totally taste like you did!) Very little prep time for this one, and the house stayed nice and cool! Enjoy.

Lime Chicken

1 1/2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast meat, salt and peppered
1/8 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 lime, juiced
1 teaspoon white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 green onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano

Place whole chicken breasts in crock pot (can be frozen). Mix all other ingredients together and spread over chicken. Cook on high for three hours. (Less time if chicken is not frozen.)

Stovetop instructions:
Cut chicken into pieces. Saute chicken in a medium saucepan over medium high heat for about 20 minutes. Add vinegar, lime juice, sugar, salt, pepper, green onion, garlic and oregano. Simmer for an extra 10 minutes.