Your Mama’s Salsa

No really.

The salsa I’m making here is my go to recipe. It’s likely the same kind of salsa your mama made, if your mama made salsa. I think the success of this recipe lies in its simplicity. There’s a great depth of flavor thanks to the roasting of a few ingredients, and brightness due to the onion, lime, and cilantro. I get a lot of compliments on this recipe. It's super easy and great to take to potlucks.

Now that I've hyped this salsa up, let’s get to it.

Heat oven to 400 degrees.

Ingredients:

Tomatoes (5-6 Reg or 10-11 Roma)

2 Jalapenos

3 Garlic Cloves

1 medium yellow onion

1 bunch of cilantro

1 lime

Salt, to taste

Canola Oil (approx. ½ tbsp.)

Place tomatoes, jalapenos, and garlic in an oven safe dish. Toss with oil. I've estimated the oil here. Really, a little goes a long way. You want just enough to coat everything.

Roast for 20 minutes, until the skin begins to blister and peels off easily. If the skin hasn't begun to separate from the tomato, leave in the oven longer. Ideally you don't want to go longer than 25 minutes.

Remove from the oven and let cool. Once cooled, peel skin off of tomatoes and jalapenos. Add tomatoes, jalapenos, garlic, juice of the lime, and salt to a food processor. Blend until smooth. You may have to do this in 2 batches due to the capacity of your food processor. Make sure to taste once

blended, this is your opportunity to add more lime or salt, depending on your taste. You may also want to start with one jalapeno in your mixture and then taste for heat level. Some jalapenos are spicier than others and you never know what you're going to get. If you are anti-spicy, after you peel the skin off of the jalapeno, slice the jalapeno length wise, and remove all of the seeds and ribs before

blending in the food processor. The flip side is also true; feel free to add more jalapeno if you want it really spicy, but I find two works for most people. I like the flavor of the jalapeno, but serrano peppers work here too.

While you're waiting for everything to cool, it's best to dice your onion and cilantro. I prefer a finer dice. I use the entire onion and the full bunch of cilantro. Once diced, throw both into a bowl. Go for a medium to medium/large bowl. This makes a lot of salsa.

Once your tomato mix is blended, add to the onion and cilantro bowl. Mix. Done.

Eat with chips.

Add to anything and everything.

Tip: My grandmother has always told me that you only want to use wooden spoons when mixing or scooping your salsa, so it won't get watery. I don't know if it's true, but why chance it? Use a wooden spoon.

Tip 2: Keep covered, in the refrigerator. I'd say it lasts about a week, but I don't know since we've never had any left on day 7.

Enjoy!

Albondiga Soup

So, I know it's summer.

It's hot.

And for most people, hot soup is the last thing they want on a hot day.

 

I'm not most people. I love soup. I could eat it every day, all day. My favorite soup, since I was a little girl, has been albondiga soup. It's a Mexican meatball soup filled with rice and veggies (the way I make it) and it is hearty and delicious and perfect any day of the year.

 

When I did my Sunday meal prep, I tried to make things I knew I could eat for a few days and not tire of. For me and the kid, this soup is it. It's relatively cheap to make too, the most costly ingredient being the protein.

Let's begin!

 

Start this recipe by putting a large pot of water to boil. To the water, add 8 ounces of tomato sauce (1 small can), 1 tomato bouillon cube, salt, pepper, dried oregano, cilantro (all to taste).

 

Ingredients for the meatball

Ground beef

Cilantro

Salt

Pepper

Cumin

Dried Oregano

Garlic Powder

Chili Powder

Hot Sauce

Egg

Pinch of uncooked rice

 

Note: I didn't include measurements, because it's really to taste. Want to cut salt? Leave it out. Don't like heat? Omit the hot sauce and chili powder. The taste of the meatballs can be accommodated to everyone's taste buds.

 

Note about protein: You can easily swap out ground beef for ground chicken or ground turkey. My favorite is ground chicken. It has incredible flavor, but I didn't have any, so I used ground beef.

 

Note about ground beef: try to go lean or you'll have a really oily, greasy soup. I like fat, but I found myself skimming the fat quite a bit in this 80/20 beef. I think 90/10 is pretty ideal. Also, if you're making this ahead, after the soup cools, put the entire pot in the fridge overnight and in the morning, the fat will have solidified and will be easy to remove. If you're eating right away, skim, skim, skim.

Now, add all ingredients to a large bowl and mix with your hands. Once mixed, let sit until your pot is ready to go. Once your water (broth?) in the pot, comes to a boil, lower the flame a bit, you want a gentle boil to cook the soup.

 

Roll your meatball and add to the pot, one at a time. I prefer the size of a golf ball or slightly smaller.

 

Let cook for about 10 minutes, and prep your veggies.

 

Veggies.

You can add any veggie that boils well. You can certainly add more veggies than  I do. Since I like the meatball to be the star of the soup, I only add three veggies: carrots, potatoes, and squash. You'll want to peel or wash your veggies before chopping. I peel the carrots, but leave the potato skin. You also want to add veggies into the soup based on their cook time.

 

Since carrots are denser, I add them first. I peel, and dice, season with salt and pepper. Add to pot. After about 5-7 minutes, I chop up the potatoes, slightly larger than I did the carrots, season with salt and pepper, and add them to the pot. After 5-7 minutes, I dice the squash. I also take out the middle of the squash, it tends to overcook and leave mushy bits throughout the soup. Season with salt and pepper, add to pot.

 

It's very important to season everything on it's own, no bland food here!

 

After 5 minutes, check to make sure all veggies are tender by sticking a fork in them.

 

It's important to know approximately how long it takes your veggies to cook. You don't want hard or overly cooked vegetables.

So after about 30-35 minutes (after your pot has come to a boil), your soup is ready. Not too bad, right?

 

Time to assemble.

 

Pick your bowl. Add some cooked rice. (I made rice in bulk on Sunday too, stay tuned for that blog post!) Ladle on your soup.

 

Add, to taste, lemon and/or hot sauce. I chose both.

 

Note about hot sauce: I like Cholula. It's not very hot, at all, but very flavorful. If you want spicy, choose a Tabasco or Tapatio, or even better, something homemade!

 

I made this recipe in bulk, enough for one nights dinner for me and the kids, and lunches throughout the week for me and the kid.



 

You might not think this is kid friendly fare, but I have found that kids LOVE meatballs. It's strange really, I haven't met a kid who doesn't. A soup like this is a great way to introduce veggies to kids who maybe are opposed to them. You can chop up the veggies and meatballs to small dices, so they can't differentiate what the veggies actually are. Dice the veggies small AFTER cooking, before serving, otherwise, if you make them that small to start with, they'll just turn to mush. My kid loves carrots and will eat them in any state of cooking. The other veggies, not so much. So, I leave the carrots regular size, and dice up the other veggies small, like I suggested earlier. He eats up the whole thing, and sometimes even asks for seconds!

Last note, but more of a tip. Notice my first picture, is the bowl of soup on top of a plate? My soup came out of the fridge today and needed to be heated up in a microwave. I like my soup HOT, temperature wise. Just microwaving the bowl of soup, would leave the bowl way too hot to handle. By heating up the bowl on top of a plate, the bowl and it's contents get hot, but the plate gets only slightly warm, making it easy to remove from the microwave and not burn your fingers.

 

Why? I have no idea, but it works.

 

Hope you enjoyed today's recipe and if you don't make it, hope you took away some tips or tricks.

 

Until next time!