10 Minute Emergency Salsa

The Other Adult loves salsa and has almost no tolerance for mexican food without salsa. And really, what is mexican food without salsa, anyway? Particularly mexican food made by me, midwest-lovin', vegetarian eating, blond haired little old me, who didn't even like tacos until I was an adult--my mexican food is basically not mexican food anyway. It's...LesMex. Hehe.

So the other day I made tostadas and only at the end did I realize that there was basically no salsa in the house. The Other Adult hates it when I commit the sin of going to the grocery store during or before a meal for some necessary ingredient. She likes the house to be fully stocked at all times and any indication that we don't have a full grocery store on hand at all times basically pushes her over the edge. She also says I take too long to go to the grocery store.

I was faced with the choice of trying to eek by with only three or four spoonfuls of salsa, or I had to get more somehow. I improvised and made my own. This took about 10 minutes.

Note, this recipe does not include any actual hot peppers. Remember, this is LesMex. And in my house we wouldn't know what to do with hot peppers. The one time I worked with hot peppers my hands burned for 24 hours, so we really don't keep them around. But the salsa tastes good anyway and the Other Adult likes it.

Now, forgive me if these pictures are all a bit dark. They were taken on my phone. I've been messing around with Instagram. The goal of the last two days was to email the pictures straight to blogger from my phone and save it in a post that I could later edit. This has not come to pass at all. But I did find out that you can somewhat edit pictures for color and format in Instagram. The end results don't even very look, so I've really gotten nowhere.

10 Minute Emergency Salsa

1 16 oz can diced tomatoes

2-3 T tomato paste

1/2 c chopped fresh cilantro

1/4 c finely diced onions

1 T olive oil

1 T chopped garlic

1 T lime juice

hot sauce and salt to taste (I think I used about 3-4 T of hot sauce and 1-2 t of salt)

Puree the canned tomatoes for 2-3 seconds until all the biggest chunks have broken down. Remove half the tomatoes into a mixing bowl and puree the rest until creamy and smooth. Combine all the ingredients in a bowl.