the best salsa

This blog is about food among other things. I have a huge vegetable garden, un potager. We grow most of the vegetables we eat in the summer and try to save as much as we can for the winter! We were eating last years potatoes until this June! It helps to have a nice freezer. I have been growing raspberries and strawberries for a few years now and had the largest harvest yet this year. I have read a lot about pruning and cultivation of the raspberry plants and expect to have at least three times as much next year! J'adore les framboise!
We have too many tomatoes all at once and it is a challenge not to waste any! I love Mexican food and have to bring back the dried chiliies from the USA when I make my visits, but last year, I started to grow jalepenos. If I start the seeds in a little hotbox, they are going good by thte time to plant outside arrives in June. I chop and freeze a lot so I can have them all winter, but the frexsh ones mean that we can have guacamole and salsa all summer long.
Usually I make a fresh Pico de Gallo...tomato, onion, fresh coriander, jalepenos and lemon juice...a dash of salt.....
But, then sometimes I make Salsa Roja, more like the stuff you find on the table in a Mexican restaurant, plus, it freezes well.
It is a little more trouble, but worth it!
The basic technique:
2 big ripe tomatoes....pan roast them in a frying pan until they are blackend....chop them roughly.
1 nice onion cut into 3/4 inch slices and pan roasted until they are browned...chop them roughly.
3 unpeeled garliic cloves pan roasted, when they are cooled, peel them and chop them.
3 nice fresh jalepeno peppers, again pan roasted and blackened and blistered. Don't seed them. Chop them up and mix all the ingredients.
About a Tablespoon of Oregano
At least a teaspoon of ground cumin
(If you can get fresh Mexican Oregano, all the better, you can heat it in the pan before adding it, it has a different taste. If you have cumin seed, you can roast them and freshly grind them for a definitely better flavor, if not, well it doesn't matter)
The taste it and and add salt. If you are using store bought industrial tomatoes, youmight want to add a dash of sugar.
The amounts of ingredients can vary, but after you fix it a few times, you will agree that this is the best salsa and if you freeze it, you can have it in the dead of winter and remember how great your garden was last year!!!!!