This Christmas Eve, as our family gathered around the table, we felt the all too familiar absence of one of our brothers. Over the past eight years they’ve been scattered from California to Ukraine serving two year LDS missions. While a two year absence is never easy, it becomes especially poignant around holidays, birthdays and other events like championship baseball or football games. This Christmas marked the first of two Christmases without Danny who is serving in Mexico City.
He called us via Skype from a small internet café and we got to see his face for the first time since we sent him off in June. He looked handsome and happy, and it was fun to hear more details about the stories we’ve read in his emails. So in honor of Danny we switched up one of our traditions this year. Instead our of usual Christmas Eve dinner we went with a Feliz Navidad theme. We made bean dip, guacamole, rice, delicious taco chicken, and topped it all off with our favorite fresh salsa.
This salsa is a weekly staple. It can be altered a bit depending on your tastes. Sometimes we’re feeling super spicy, other days we’re a little more mild. Whatever your preference this recipe delivers delicious {and beautiful} results every single time.
In this recipe we use a combination of canned and fresh tomatoes. In this batch we ended up with some gorgeous heirloom grape tomatoes that added beautiful color to the salsa. However we’ve used everything from romas to beefsteaks and its delicious every time.
In a food processor blend the fresh tomatoes with 1/2 of sweet onion and 1/4 of a purple onion and jalapeno pepper. To make our salsa more salsa-ish and less like pico de gallo, we blend the drained, stewed tomatoes in the blender before adding it to the fresh tomato/onion mix.
Next add cilantro, salt, pepper, garlic, and cumin. You can squeeze in some fresh lime juice here if you’d like. Try and resist opening a bag of tortilla chips for about 20 minutes to let the flavors blend. Pour into your favorite fiesta bowl and enjoy!
- The BEST Fresh Salsa
- 1 C. of fresh tomatoes
- 1- 12oz can of stewed or diced tomatoes, drained
- ¼ of a medium sized jalapeno pepper
- ½ of a sweet onion
- ¼ of a purple onion
- 2 tsp minced garlic
- ½ tsp cumin
- 1½ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp black pepper
- ¼ C. chopped, fresh cilantro
- Add fresh tomatoes, purple onion, and sweet onion to food processor and pulse to desired consistency.
- In a blender, blend drained stewed/diced tomatoes until smooth.
- Combine with the fresh tomato-onion mixture.
- Add garlic, cumin, salt, pepper, and chopped cilantro.
- Allow flavors to combine for 20-30 minutes before serving.
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