Recipe #9: Restaurant-style Salsa (with dish)

I always have a craving for chips and salsa. It is one of my go-to snacks every binge day. There's a small problem though: most store-bought salsas are not very good. I'm not a big fan of "thick and chunky" salsa in the first place, which is what almost every jar contains, and most of them seem to be average in taste at best. I do like the salsa that you can get at Mexican restaurants around here and I've figured out a way to make it very easily, although I'll give you some possible extras as well.

Ingredients: 2 cans of "Rotel"-style tomatoes with green chiles (2 if it's a 15 oz. can, 3 if 10), 1 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. garlic powder, 1 tsp. onion powder

• For the basic recipe, all you do is combine the ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. You can certainly modify the spice level to suit your tastes as well.

Other possible ingredients/techniques:

•   Varying levels of fresh ingredients - I would almost always use canned tomatoes because they are just so easy and they work so well but you can mix and match fresher ingredients as you see fit.
• Chopped serranos or jalapenos instead of the green chiles found in Rotel. One of these will make it pretty hot and it will go up in heat from there. You could also use canned versions of these for more heat just realize that they will be pickled.
• Fresh cloves of garlic instead of garlic powder (2 would work well). You could also use jarred, minced garlic as well (1 tsp.)
• You can certainly use fresh onions as well instead of onion powder (1/4-1/2 chopped depending on the size of the onion)
• When adding these ingredients I would put them in before my tomatoes to make sure they're good and small before mixing it all together.

• Roasted ingredients - Roasting your ingredients adds a certain sweetness and affects the overall flavor. You can roast you fresh tomatoes, peppers, garlic, and onions on a grill, in a frying pan, in your oven's broiler or, in the case of the peppers, straight on top of the burner on your stove. After you roast these you'll just want to make sure you remove the burnt skins. You can also buy most of the stuff pre-roasted and canned as well.
• Varying levels of chunkiness - If you would like a chunkier salsa, you can use a little bit different technique. First add your peppers and garlic to the blender or food processor and mince. Next add 1/2 your tomatoes and onion powder and puree. Finally add the second 1/2 of your tomatoes and stir with a spoon. Whatever you want to have chunks of just add later and don't blend it.
• Additional spices/ingredients: You can add something extra to your salsa with cumin, fresh cilantro or some lime juice depending on your taste and all can add something positive. 

 My salsa definitely looks like spaghetti sauce.

What to do with your salsa:
As I said above, I always want chips with my salsa but I have yet to find any kind of chip that's on my diet. But you can use your salsa to cook with on your non-binge days. Here's something that I did today:

1. Took some chicken thigh filets and cut into large pieces and generously coated both sides with salt and pepper.
2. Seared on both sides in 2 tbsp. of olive oil over medium-high heat.
3. Added about 1 1/2 cups of salsa and turned the heat down to a simmer and let it sit for awhile.
4. For some greens I added a little of what I had at the very end: 1 can of drained green peas and 2 cups of baby spinach. 
5. Once these were stirred in I cut the heat and used it as one of dinner meals

It might not look so good put this was definitely a good home-made, Mexican-style dinner. And I am looking forward to putting my salsa to good use this Saturday when I can get some tortilla chips.