Red Pepper Salsa

Today Dave declared he was making eggs with salsa.  'Sounds great, but we don't have any salsa' I smugly quipped. 'There's a tomato in there, you can make some' Dave replied.  He was quite serious too.  This from a guy who doesn't want to be an inconvenience; it was a rare statement.  I could do nothing but rise to the request.

He was right, we indeed did have a tomato, along with one jalapeno pepper, a lime and some parsley.  These ingredients were screaming for a salsa.  After removing those ingredients from the fridge, a stray red bell pepper stood silent; it looked so lonely I just couldn't leave it in the cold dark fridge alone, so in the salsa it goes.

Quite honestly, there is nothing super secret or different about this salsa recipe, it uses all the typical base salsa ingredients and it goes together in about 10 minutes.  It's a combination of a fresh salsa and a roasted salsa without the long wait of the full roasting.  My red pepper salsa was ready at the same time the eggs were, we ate and went about our day.  Simple.  Another fat and happy request complete.

Tips and Techniques: If you do have time and want to further roast the tomatoes and the red pepper, drop them on a cookie sheet and into the oven until the skins burst. They become sweeter with roasting. If you want a milder salsa, do not use the full jalapeno after roasting it.  Start with half and then add more according to your taste.

Red Pepper Salsa 

1 lime
2 large tomatoes
1 jalapeno
1 red pepper
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 large garlic clove
1/2 cup rough chopped parsley
1/2 tsp salt

Pan roast the jalapeno and garlic. Do this by simply placing them in a dry fry pan on medium high heat to sear the skin.  Toss often and be careful not to burn the garlic.

Remove garlic clove, cut the tomatoes into 4 quarters and add to the pan (skin side down).  The goal is to just add a hint more flavor by a quick roasting. Don't toss them, just let them sit in one spot, that spot will become dark- remove from heat just before that spot on the tomatoes turn black. Should take just a few minutes.

Finely chop the onions and red pepper.

Place jalapeno and garlic in Cuisinart, blend until finely chopped. Add tomatoes and salt, pulse until all combined and tomatoes are chopped up. Pour into a bowl.

Add chopped onions to bowl.  Add half of the red peppers to bowl and the other half to the Cuisinart. Add the parsley and juice of one lime to Cuisinart - blend until finely chopped.  Add to bowl. Mix and serve.