Good Food Hunting

I hosted a baby shower on Saturday for my best friend who is having a girl in August.  I had hoped to make a great spread of tasty appetizers but space and time being a premium this week, I went with veggie trays, cake from Sam’s Club and cheese and crackers instead.

But no party hosted by me is complete without something homemade.  A few weeks ago, I came across a recipe at 101 Cookbooks for a Cherry Macaroon Tart that sounded interesting and with Michigan being a big cherry growing state, figured I could get my hands on some nice fresh sweet cherries without much effort.  The cherries I did find were a little more tart than sweet but the tart was still pretty good. A lot was eaten at the shower and my dad was chowing on the leftovers today.

I knew I’d have some down time during the baking of the tart and decided I’d make some salsa too. I have a spinach dip I’m kind of famous for but didn’t have a food processor on hand for that.  Salsa only requires a knife and cutting board, which I did have. Oh, and this salsa required a can opener.

At the shower, I’m talking with some old friends and one says “I have to get the recipe for this from you.” I said okay, but its really hard and time consuming.

What you gotta do is….

a. chop up 1/2 a red onion

b. chop up 1 red bell pepper

c. Open a can of corn, a can of black beans, a can of fire-roasted tomatoes. Drain/rinse (beans).

Dump all of the above in a bowl.  Squeeze some lime juice over the veggies, add some chopped garlic and as much cilantro as you like plus a little salt and pepper. Mix it up.

Add chopped jalapenos as desired.

DONE!

Now, for the garlic, I actually sprinkled the salt over the chopped garlic then used the side of my knife to mash it in to a paste.  I let it all sit in the fridge overnight then adjusted the lime juice in the morning.

And I bought an avocado thinking I might dice that up and add it right before the shower. But then I didn’t so instead I’ll eat that avocado all by myself tomorrow with tuna over my salad, for lunch.

Easy-peasy salsa-reasy!

You could of course use fresh tomatoes if desired.  This “concept” for this salsa came about as I was packing up the pantry in anticipation of moving.  I just held out the cans of beans, corn and tomatoes.  And of course, tomato pickens’ are slim at the moment, what with all the deadly salmonella running around. Or not.  Or running around, not on tomatoes.