Jalisca-Guajillo Salsa

This is a pretty easy salsa to make, and is excellent drizzled on tacos. Its more of a sauce than a dipping salsa, but is great in addition to some pico de gallo for tacos, or for serving with meat. It's from my favorite Mexican recipe source, thanks Jamie! It's great as an interesting additional beyond the more common salsas.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 ounces guajillo chiles (about 6), cleaned, stemmed, seeded, and deveined
1/2 oz dried arbol chiles (15-20), cleaned and stemmed
2 garlic cloves, peeled
1 1.5" piece fresh ginger, peeled and sliced
3/4 cup water for blending
1 tsp apple cider vinegar, or more to taste
1/2 tsp fine salt/1 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp ground cumin

Directions:
Place the chiles in a medium pot with enough water to cover and bring to a simmer. Cook them until soft, about 15 minutes. Add the garlic and ginger to the pot for one minute.

Home Made Chile Powder

This sounds a little daunting, but is extremely simple. If you play around with what chiles you like, you can also customize it. I just kind of made it up, but I took 2 dried guajillo chiles, 2 dried chipotle mora chiles, and two chiles de arbol. (When I see dried chiles I just buy a bunch and keep them in the cabinet for impromptu recipes like this or chile-infused olive oil for black bean dip etc.) Head up a cast iron skillet to medium high. Split the chiles and take out all the seeds and veins. Two at a time, toast the chiles in the hot skillet, pressing down on them with tongs, until they start to blister a little (1-2 minutes). Put all of the toasted peppers in a food processor and blend until you have a powder. A couple bigger pieces are okay. Then use for chile, marinades, salsas... whatever you want!