Not a Note 81

Brrr, it's getting chili!

Time to motivate the world to make their own salsas! It’s really easy to do and honestly it’s pretty satisfying to whip up a delicious, restaurant-worthy salsa, one that lets you eat like an emperor and only spend like a peasant.

I got the urge to make yesterday’s salsa because Lovey had a tomato plant that, due to this being New Hampshire and all, wasn’t suuuuper excited about producing a surplus of ripe, red tomatoes. Especially given that its pot was on our back deck, basically a cave in terms of light and bright.

But even with a childhood filled with such challenges, it did manage to produce a handful of golfball sized fruits. Three of which had been sitting on our kitchen window for the past week, walking that fine line between ripening off the vine and just getting old. And so, with that as a motivation, and knowing that Lovey had made a whole heap of roasted potatoes, half of which were chilling in the fridge after being used in a prior dinner, an idea was born. Why not take those roasted potatoes and onions, shred up the bit of Monterey Jack that was lurking in the fridge, put it on a tortilla that’s getting all warm and toasty on a cast iron pan, cover with ANOTHER tortilla and call it a potato quesadilla!

And after the lower tortilla had browned, and the whole assemblage had been flipped and browned again, AND the whole thing had then been stuck in the microwave for a quick 20 second blast to make extra sure the cheese was all melty … it obviously called out for a delicious salsa.

So that’s the backstory and here’s what you do to make that salsa. Just grab some tomatoes (in my case home grown golfball tomatoes but if you’re out shopping I’d go for plum tomatoes since they’re firm and better suited to high heat. Slice them in half. Take a yellow onion (you can do white or red as well - I just prefer yellow) and halve it and then halve the halves. Just don’t halve the halve nots.

Get a cast iron skillet all hot and throw some oil in. Once that’s hot, put your tomatoes and onions in and also throw in a couple of jalapeños and a handful of garlic cloves. Don’t bother to get the cloves out of their skins - I told you this was an easy peasy recipe and having to peel garlic reduces the easy (although leaves the peasy untouched).

It should look and sound like this:

What comes later? Just browning and in the case of the onions, blacking of the outer layers. Here’s a partway done video:

Doesn’t that sizzle really sell it?

Once it’s charred to your satisfaction (this is a dealer’s choice kind of thing) just remove the veggies from the heat and choppity chop chop. The garlic cloves will just fall out of their skins and can easily be chopped into something resembling this:

Slice the jalapeños lengthwise and scrape out the pith and seeds if you don’t want a hot salsa or don’t bother if you like it spicy. Or anything in between. Choppity chop. Tomatoes, which at this point will be a mushy mess, get the choppity action as well, as do the onions. Dump them all into a handy mortar like this:

Add some chopped cilantro if you like that flavor (some people hate it), maybe some more jalapeño(!), a pinch or two of salt and stir.

I’ll note that you can also try and use a blender, which absolutely is a pure frustration for me when I try, or use a food processor, which works well but I like the old fashioned satisfaction of stabbing and crushing my food.

Put the salsa, which of course was made before you assembled the quesadilla, atop said quesadilla, add some guac if you wish, and chow down, happy in the thought that a Mexican restaurant would have charged more and wouldn’t even have had a roasted potato quesadilla to offer in the first place.

Note: For those scandalized by my calling for Monterey Jack instead of using some Mexican Oaxaca or quesadilla cheese, the reason was two-fold. First, I already had the Jack cheese in my fridge and it melts just fine. Second, my Beloved Market Basket, which in months past was well stocked with not just Oaxaca and Cotija and what have you, has been a veritable desert of Mexican cheeses lately. So sad. However, a good cook makes do.

Okay, time for Lovey’s coffee and cartoon. ‘Til next time.