my first batch of homemade salsa

Now that summer is pretty much over, I find myself with lots of tomatoes and jalapenos, which I grew myself thank you very much! There's a certain amount of pride in the fact that I grew these edible items in my own backyard.

My regular tomatoes are finally ripening (I'm STILL waiting on the Romas....), which means I need to find a use for them fast. I'm not a fan of the seeds and goop that's inside a tomato, so eating them in a salad or on a sandwich is out of the question. Plus I generally don't eat salads and sandwiches anymore. I figured my options are: tomato sauce, salsa, roasted tomatoes, on pizza, or chopped up for tacos. I decided on salsa since I needed to use the jalapenos, too. I Goggled for a recipe and found one easily.

Making the salsa was incredibly easy. Probably because I picked a "fresh" recipe (no-cook) and used my food processor. I was done in like 10 minutes, which includes peeling and chopping the veggies.

As you can see, it's a little chunky, but not much. And it's more on the thin side. It tastes great; however, I was skeptical at first. It definitely doesn't taste like your standard store-bought salsa, which is cooked and contains vinegar and/or sugar. I was tempted to fiddle around and add more of this or that, but I resisted. It tasted like there was too much onion and it didn't seem to have any heat even though I used two jalapenos (minus the seeds). I waited a couple hours and the heat started growing. Then the next day I tasted again and it was perfect. The heat had mellowed and it tasted less like onions. (I was later told that fresh salsa takes at least a day or more for the flavors to meld and develop; they were right!)

The verdict for my first time making salsa? It tastes great, it was super easy, and I used up some tomatoes. I'd make it again.

Here's the recipe.

Fresh Salsa

6 garden tomatoes, cut into quarters
2 jalapeños, seeded and roughly chopped
1/2 large yellow onion, peeled and roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
juice of 1 lime
1 cup loosely packed fresh cilantro leaves
1/2 teaspoon salt

Toss it all in the food processor and pulse until it's at a consistency you like. Taste and adjust the seasonings as necessary.

Note: The flavors of the salsa will change the longer it sits in the fridge. If you don't need it right away, you might want to wait until the following day to make adjustments.

honey & chili chicken breasts

A few weeks ago I had a bunch of cilantro and didn't know what to do with it. When I bought the cilantro from the farm stand up the road, I had visions of Mexican dishes in my mind, but, as usual, the motivation to actually find and make the recipes fizzled by the end of the day. So, I was left with a whole lot of cilantro to use or lose.

I found this recipe online at one of my favorite cooking sites, The Kitchn. I grilled the thighs rather than baking. The recipe calls for baking the chicken, but a lot of the comments mention how messy the pan got and how hard it was to clean, which is because of the beer and honey. That's not for me, so grilling it was!

The marinade came together easily. Picking the cilantro was a little tedious, but not overly so. Once it was mixed, I tossed the marinade in a large zipper top plastic bag along with the chicken and left them in the fridge overnight. I made the sauce, too. The next day I grilled the chicken, stirred up the sauce (it seemed to separate a little) and then poured it over the cooked chicken.

I also roasted some red potatoes with olive oil, fresh rosemary from my garden, salt and pepper; and some green beans with olive oil and Borsari seasoned salt (love this stuff!); both were also from the farm stand. It was a very easy meal, actually.

I thought this tasted really good. I will say, however, that if you don't like cilantro, you won't like the sauce. It's quite strong. It was good, though.  I'd make this recipe again, but I would probably make half the amount of sauce or find multiple uses for it.

If you want the recipe, here it is:  Honey & Chili Chicken Thighs with cilantro Cream Sauce.

Here's the finished meal!

homemade flavored goat cheese

I think by now everyone knows I LOVE goat cheese. I spread it on toast and top it with a fried egg. I put it in my sausage and goat cheese egg muffins. I spread it on crackers. I even make paninis with it.

Recently I found myself with three (THREE!) 11 oz. logs of plain goat cheese. What to do?

I also recently started growing herbs outside:  parsley, rosemary, sage, lavender and basil. While the others are growing nicely, the basil plant has pretty much exploded with leaves. That's normally great, but I typically only use basil when I make caprese salad. Since my tomatoes aren't ready yet, and I don't want to spend a small fortune on buying grape tomatoes and mozzarella (and there's really only so much caprese salad I should be eating--very caloric because of the oil and cheese), I decided to Google and see if there are any recipes for making flavored goat cheese. Of course, there are many.

I found a recipe similar to the one below; however, it's supposed by be a coating for the goat cheese log, not really a mix-in. (I prefer the cheese to be flavored throughout.) But I wanted to use this one, because I could use up some of the lemon I have in the fridge as well as some of my basil. It calls for fresh oregano, though. I loathe buying fresh herbs, because I never use them all before they wilt. However, our neighbors up the road, who moved in last year, have a huge garden and are selling their harvests. Guess what they have this week? Fresh oregano! They also have dill and cilantro; I bought both.

I made two goat cheese spreads with the herbs I got today. One is based on a recipe I found online and the other I just made up and totally guesstimated the amount of lemon and dill. You'll need to taste and see what works for you. I'd say there's a strong lemon tang in both of these, so if that's not your thing just use less lemon. Also, if you want to use dried herbs instead, that's fine. Just use roughly 1/3 of what the recipe calls for below and let the finished spread sit longer in the fridge.

Goat Cheese with Basil and Oregano

1/3 cup chopped fresh basil
1/2 tsp grated lemon rind
1 TB fresh lemon juice
1 TB extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp chopped fresh oregano
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 garlic cloves, minced
6 to 12 oz. of plain goat cheese, room temperature
(if you like the herb flavor really strong, use 6 oz. of cheese; if you like it less potent, add more cheese)

Mix all the ingredients together and refrigerate for a bit to develop the flavors. Spread on crackers, crusty bread, etc.

Goat Cheese with Lemon and Dill
1 tsp grated lemon rind
1 TB chopped fresh dill
6 oz. plain goat cheese, room temperature

Mix all the ingredients together and refrigerate for a bit to develop the flavors. Spread on crackers, crusty bread, etc.

Lemon and dill on the left (make sure you chop your dill a little more than I did.); basil and oregano on the right.