Roasted Tomato and Pineapple Salsa

This is a very complicated salsa recipe, I’m not going to lie, but it’s so tasty! There are a lot of ingredients cooked a few different ways, and the results are fantastic. You can really taste everything and it comes together as a sweet, sour, spicy salsa that’s just super flavorful. The recipe is from Truly Mexican, my fave. Would be perfect for Super Bowl this weekend!

Ingredients:

1 lb tomatoes (4 small/medium)

1 1/2 cups pineapple chunks

1 medium red onion, peeled whole and cut into 1/2” rounds

5 garlic cloves, peeled

3 dried arbol chiles, wiped clean and stemmed

1 small poblano or hot Italian pepper

pinch allspice

2 tbsp chopped jalapeño chiles, including seeds

1/2 cup chopped cilantro

1/2 cup fresh squeezed orange juice

3 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice

2 tbsp distilled white vinegar

2 tbsp water

1 1/2 tsp sugar

1 1/2 tsp fine salt or 1 tbsp kosher salt

Habanero Cauliflower Puree and Adobo-Marinated Flank Steak

I bought some pretty orange cauliflower at the Union Square market and still had some adobo sauce leftover so thought I'd make something Mexican. I bought a habenero and some flank steak, too, and decided to make a spicy cauliflower puree to go with it. It was delicious and all the flavors really go well together, especially with some good spicy salsa. 

Chipotle and Roasted Garlic Salsa

This is an easy salsa that's so spicy and smokey and great on tacos. 

Ingredients:

2 dried chipotle peppers

3 garlic cloves, peeled

1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar 

1/4 cup water

1/2 tsp kosher salt

Directions:

Heat a cast iron skillet to medium-low heat. Toast the chipotles and garlic. The chipotles for about 5 minutes and the garlic until it's soft and has some charred spots, 8-10 minutes. 

Puree the peppers, garlic, and remaining ingredients for at least 2 minutes until smooth. Season with salt and vinegar. 

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.

Best Lunch - Burritos

Often I have to run out during lunch and end up spending like $10 on a little salad. I hate spending lots of money on lunch just because those are the only options. I do bring leftovers a lot, but not every day. Then I decided I should make some burritos and freeze them, wrapped individually, to take to work for lunch. Also, if I made them myself, I knew I could make them taste just the way I like, and be sure they're actually pretty healthy at the same time. I made 8 the other day and Jamie flipped out and loved them so much he begged me to make more, so last week I went to the store and loaded up on supplies.

Spicy Pineapple Salsa

Of course, I'd made this one as our friends were arriving and I was rushing to finish up so I could get out of the kitchen and be social, so I forgot to take pictures! This is a very quick salsa to throw together and is a real crowd pleaser. Everyone loved it. It's bright and spicy and sweet. It was delicious on chips, and would be great with fish or pork or chicken, anything really.

Ingredients:
1 cup diced fresh pineapple
1/3 cup finely chopped fresh jalapeno chiles, including seeds, or more to taste
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
3 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice, or more to taste
2 tbsp freshly squeezed orange juice
1 1/2 tsp sugar, if you need it (I didn't use any)
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 small red onion, minced


Directions:
Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. Season to taste with additional chile, lime juice, sugar, and salt.

Roasted Cherry Tomato Salsa

This is a beautiful salsa and has a mellow sweetness from the roasted tomatoes and a mellow heat from roasting the jalapenos. The garlic and lime provide a fresh bite. This is a perfect salsa to make for winter because cherry tomatoes are easy to find and are usually still pretty good in the winter. Even if they're not the best, once they're roasted it doesn't really matter. These little roasted tomatoes are fab. Also, we learned that when you skin them it's a treat to just pop the skins into your mouth as you go - yum.

Ingredients:
1 pint red cherry tomatoes
1 pint yellow cherry tomatoes
2 fresh jalapenos or serranos, stemmed
2 garlic cloves, peeled
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice, or more to taste

Roasted Tomatillo Salsa with Toasted Chile Powder

This salsa is unbelievably good. I've actually already made it twice this week. It's pretty simple, too, and has such a good combination of flavors. The tomatillos become syrupy and sweet while they roast, melding perfectly with the smoky, sweet heat of the chipotle powder and the bite of the garlic.

Ingredients:
1/2 lb tomatillos, about 5 or 6 medium, husked and rinsed
1 garlic clove, peeled
2 tsp chipotle powder
1 tsp kosher salt

Mexican Feast from Truly Mexican by Roberto Santibanez

Jamie got me an amazing Mexican cookbook for Christmas - Truly Mexican by Roberto Santibanez. We decided to try it out this weekend and have a few friends over for a Mexican feast. It was great! And in the process, I found the coolest spot to source all of the harder-to-find Mexican ingredients (dried peppers, corn flours, big, ripe tomatillos...) It's a stall in Essex Street Market called Viva Fruits and Vegetables. I went a little overboard and bought a bunch of things, including masa tamale flour and lard, so there may be tamales featured on here in the not so distant future.

We had chilaquiles to start along with freshly made tortilla chips and three great salsas - roasted tomatillo with toasted chipotle powder salsa, roasted cherry tomato salsa, and spicy pineapple salsa. For the main course, we had an adobo braised lamb, shredded up perfectly for tacos. It was delicious.

Carnitas tacos with spicy roast pineapple salsa

I had a few people over for Cinco de Mayo and wanted to try making carnitas - one of my fave taco options. They were delicious, and though you have to have a few hours to kill before you serve them, it's not a lot of work, just a long cooking time. The meat was extremely tender and flavorful and the spicy and sweet salsa went perfectly with the pork. I also like to top tacos with some very thinly slice radishes - gives it a fresh crunch and looks pretty too! This would be perfect for having a bunch of friends for a casual Mexican night, maybe adding in some carne asada and other salsas. Just throw it all in the pot a few hours ahead of time.

Carnitas

Ingredients:

3 pounds pork shoulder, cut into cubes

2 cups water

1 white onion, peeled and cut into quarters

Vermont goodies

We skied in Stratton today and on the way back to the motel I ran into St. Arnold's and got the most amazing snack! Best après ski ever. A growler of local mountain ale from The Shed Brewery in Stowe, blue corn chips from Madhouse Munchies (from VT too), some spicy, smoky, slightly sweet salsa (Fire in the Mountains' forest fire salsa - you can get it here), and awesome, woodsy, Boggy Meadow Farm fiddlehead tomme. I highly recommend all of these things and may be buying out St. Arnold's - the teeniest store with the most amazing beer selection - on my way home. Certainly I'll stop back tomorrow for more après goodies!






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poached chicken with blood orange, avocado salsa

After my superbowl indulgence, I thought I needed something fresh and not wrapped in bacon. My go-to healthy dinner is poached chicken breast with a blood orange and avocado salsa. It's super tasty and the salsa I could just eat with a spoon. It's sweet, tangy, and a little spicy. Poached chicken can be a little boring, so I put orange and lime zest, onions, hot sauce, the interior of the oranges (after I segment them), salt, and anything else I have around/think might inprove the flavor (chili powder, pepper, cumin, dried red pepper/red pepper flakes). It's healthy, but it's really good so you don't feel like your missing out.

Ingredients:
Boneless, skinless chicken breast
blood orange
lime
red onion
avocado
jalapeno

Directions:
Put the chicken breast in a small pot and just cover w/ water. Add in zest, sauce, whatever's in your kitchen etc to flavor it (a bouillon cube is also fine). Bring to a boil, turn to a simmer and let simmer, partly covered, for 10 minutes. Then turn off the heat and let it sit in the water for about 15 minutes,
Meanwhile, segment the blood orange (throw the remainder in the water) and chop into chunks. Finely chop red onion and jalapeno and cut avocado into chunks. (I find it easiest to do this while it's still in its shell - just draw criss crosses through it and scoop it out). Sprinkle w/ salt and lime juice to taste. Add more jalapenos if you want it to be hotter.
Slice the chicken breast, or serve whole, and top with the salsa. It tastes fresh and bright and the flavors are complex (and tasty) enough that you're not craving more food after.