Hot Salsa. Made by an Authentic New Mexican.

This is one of my favorite recipes: Hot Salsa. And hubby and I like it really hot.  Growing up in New Mexico I learned to appreciate spicy foods. I especially love green and red chile, but let's save that for another day. Today, I'm going to show you how to make salsa with ingredients anyone can find at their local grocery store. You might think of salsa being red - and you'll notice that mine is almost completely green. This is because the ratio of tomato to other ingredients is much different than you'll find in most store bought salsa. But it's soon delicious!

Salsa has healthy ingredients - literally everything in it is a vegetable.
It is also vegan - again, pure vegetables!
Plus I can easily double the recipe and get a huge bowl of salsa for under $10. Pair with a Mexican dish or just with tortilla chips to please a crowd.

Hot Salsa


Ingredients (not all may be used)
About 5-6 large tomatoes, washed
1-2 bunches of cilantro, washed and stems removed
1 small onion, peeled & quartered
5 cloves of garlic, minced
About 6 jalapeños
salt


You'll also need
blender or food processer.

1. Blanch your tomatoes and remove their skin. In the same hot water, boil your jalapeños for about 5 minutes. Allow to cool in a colander or ice water. Chop the tops off of your jalapeños, and remove seeds from 3 of them.

2. Place 4 tomatoes in the blender and blend on a low 'chop' setting for about 30 seconds.

3. Add the following to the blender: 1 bunch of cilantro, half the onion, 2 cloves of garlic, 3 seeded jalapeños, and 2 teaspoons of salt. Blend on a low setting until smooth.

4. Remove the blender from the stand and place in the refrigerator for ~30 minutes, or until salsa is cooling down. This is to allow the flavors to blend together.

5. Sample your salsa and use the guide below to determine if you need to add ingredients. Upon each addition, refrigerate salsa ~15 - 30 minutes to allow flavors to blend together. 

• If too hot, add in extra cilantro, garlic and tomato - they are 'sweet' and counteract the heat. 
• If not enough heat - add in a jalapeño with seeds.
• If  it tastes too sweet, add more jalapeños and onions.
• If your salsa has a raw taste to it, add 1 tsp of salt. 

Good luck in making your perfect salsa! I really hope you enjoyed reading this post about delicious salsa, and if you did please leave me a comment below! You are also more than welcome to post questions and comments and I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can.

Upside Down Cake

This is a pretty basic cake, fairly simple to make, with delicious results. I have used both peach & pineapples in this upside down cake - I personally still prefer pineapple though! The recipe is for peach upside down cake but I just swapped out the peaches for pineapple.
Recipe from Use Real Butter

I used a real pineapple, I prefer the taste of fresh pineapple compared to canned :)

Cutting a pineapple can be intimidating because... where do you start? First twist off the top leaves. Sometimes this can prove to be tricky, depending on the pineapple. Nice ripe ones should just twist right off and expose some of the sweet fruit. 

Once the top is removed, lay the pineapple on its side and cut off the top (about 1/2" to 1"). 

Once the whole top is off set the pineapple upright again, and being cutting off the sides. Cut into the top and slide the knife down the side, kind of like peeling a potato. Make sure to get all the little brown holes and pieces off - they are chewy and no fun to eat. 

Lay the pineapple on it's side again and cut off the bottom. Now you have all the fruit for you to cut as you like, just remember to cut out the rind! :)

**The original recipe gives more variations, that I'm not going to go into here, but seriously go check out the original!

For the Glaze:

3Tbs unsalted butter

3/4 C light brown sugar (okay I used dark brown sugar, oops)

Pineapple or peaches 

For the Cake:

1.5 C flour

1.5 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 C whole milk, at room temp

1 stick unsalted butter, softened (8 Tbs)

3/4 C Sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs at room temp

I used a 10" cast iron skillet for this. Add 3 Tbsp butter and the brown sugar to the skillet and heat over high, stirring continuously until it begins to bubble. Remove from heat, let cool. Place fruit in pan, attempting to make it look pretty. I failed at that. Make the cake next. In a small bowl mix flour, baking powder and salt, set aside. With a mixer or by hand cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in vanilla, then beat eggs in one at a time until smooth. Add half of the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and combine. Stir in milk, then stir in the rest of dry mixture until just combined - you do not want to overmix. Pour batter into pan, make sure the batter spreads into the crevices and completely covers the fruit/glaze. Bake 45-60 minutes (I let mine go the whole 60 minutes. Of course I baked mine in my toaster oven so that may have made a difference.) Let cool in pan at least 20 minutes. Use a knife to separate cake from edges of pan, then flip onto a plate - use a pot holder and be very careful because the glaze can be messy and burn you! Serve warm, with ice cream (if desired) :) Enjoy