Salsa, Salsa, Salsa. . .

My hubby makes the best salsa around.  It even rivals many of the Mexican restaurants that make their own.   He has grown so much in our 23 years together, going from not eating onions to growing and grilling his own.  
I will share his recipe with you but our secret ingredient is lots of love.  We work in the garden together and we make the salsa together.

20 or so average tomatoes
4-5 jalapeno peppers
1-2 onions
2-3 cloves of garlic
Fresh cilantro
2tbsp cumin
2 limes zested and juiced

This is a 2-3 hour process but well worth the time.
Boil your tomatoes until the skin splits then remove from water and let cool.  Boil your peppers till soft, remove and set aside to cool.  Chop onion and saute in a little olive oil till translucent.   Press garlic and saute till slight brown.  Chop a small bunch of cilantro. 
Once your tomatoes are cool you can slide the skin right off.  We leave ours in a drainer over a bowl to catch excess liquid.  Hubby chops the peppers and sets them aside.  I use the blender to blend everything together.  We do not  care for chunky salsa.   I add some tomatoes, peppers,  onion, garlic, cilantro, and some lime juice and blend then pour into a large bowl.  I do this until everything is well blended then hubby adds the cumin and zest.  This makes about 8 cups of salsa.  We keep ours in the fridge and eat on it for a week or so.  Does not usually last very long with the kids around.   I think our salsa is so good because most everything is cooked and blended.  If you try this let me know how yours turns out. 

Garden Crazy. . .

The cucumbers and zucchini are really going strong now.  I thought I would share a couple of recipes that I am using to keep up.  Yesterday I made my yummy zucchini cornbread casserole with jalapeno peppers.  I had to use my peppers from the freezer because our peppers are not ready yet.  I have been eating our cucumbers just with a little salt.  Now that they are really going strong I needed a recipe that would use more than one.
I was reading something on the Internet the other day about cucumbers and their health benefits.  I thought I would share some since cucumbers are going to be in full swing in the next few weeks.  One point was relieve joint pain (arthritis) and inflammation, as I have gotten older I have noticed my knees aching more and my hands sore at times.  I am willing to try anything that is natural for joint pain and I love cucumbers so this is a no brainer for me.  This article also said it helps with weight loss, this one I am more skeptical about but I have seen several posts about cucumber water on Pinterest lately.    It is also supposed to help blood pressure, diabetes, hydrate the body, and reduce cholesterol.  I love cucumbers and I always have, I am not sure that I believe all of what they said cucumbers can do but they are very tasty.
I fixed these the other day:
3 cucumbers peeled and sliced (thick)
1/2 cup white vinegar
1 tbsp dill
1 or 2 garlic cloves or 2 tsp garlic powder
1 jalapeno pepper
3 small onions sliced
I used a large mason jar and put my vinegar in then added my cucumber slices, dill, onion, and pepper (whole), then filled with water.  It was hard to leave them in the fridge because I wanted to eat them right then.   I held off for 2 hours and tasted, they were good but the longer they sit the better they get.  I love these!!

We have a lot of zucchini too so, I decided I would make zucchini muffins.  This is not the original recipe, as usual I tweaked it just a bit.
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 egg beaten
2 1/2 tbsp canola oil
1 tbsp molasses
1 cup finely chopped zucchini
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Combine first six ingredients and set aside.  Combine egg and oil then stir into dry ingredients.  Fold in zucchini and chocolate chips.  Oil your muffin cups bake 350 for 20-25 minutes or until pick comes out clean.

Below is my cucumber vinegar combo:

Zucchini and other garden goodies. . .

We have a lot of zucchini out of the garden this year.  I have been making a good zucchini cornbread casserole.  At least 2 zucchini chopped fine, add 2 eggs, and a cup of shredded cheese and a box of jiffy corn muffin mix.  Mix all of this together and sprinkle top with a 1/2 cup of shredded cheese and bake at 375 for at least 40 minutes or until golden brown.  When we have jalapenos I add a couple of them chopped up fine and only a few seeds for some added heat.  This is a good casserole.  It keeps well in the fridge if you have left overs.  I eat it cold the next day for breakfast most of the time.
I made some zucchini bread last night and it was good too.  I like the casserole better.  We are freezing peas for later and I also made some mountain stew to freeze for this winter.  Mountain stew is really good.  Brown some ground beef and throw it in the crock pot.  Add some tomato sauce, I like to add a little V8 juice, cumin, chili powder, dry mustard, cilantro, garlic powder, onion powder.  Add carrots, some cut up potatoes, and some chopped cabbage and cook over night in the crock pot on med high.   This is a great hearty stew and good served with sour cream and shredded cheese with tortilla chips or crackers.   The carrots, potatoes, and cabbage soak up the flavor of the stew and make this really good.