Friday, July 22, 2016

Roasted Corn and Hatch Chile Salsa (Canning Recipe)

This tangy salsa combines seasonal vegetables--corn, tomatoes, and peppers--into a base perfect for blending to make your own twist. This recipe can be canned so you can easily whip up summer flavors any time of year. Try it mixed with black beans, or chunks of avocado, stirred into taco meat or layered on a taco salad.

a dish of roasted corn and Hatch chile salsa surrounded by tortilla chips


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a busy kitchen counter with tomatoes and peppers waiting to be prepped
What my kitchen looked like when I made this recipe. I was also pickling banana peppers and canning pizza sauce.


Ok let's get a few things straight.  First, I work on this site about a year ahead. That means what I am posting now are recipes I made & photographed a year ago. I do this mainly because by the time I get the photos edited and I'm ready to publish a post . . . I've missed the season.



a top down view of canning jars in a pasta pot
A top down view of my tall pasta pot that I use for smaller canning projects. This holds half pint and pint jars easily, but when canning quart size jars I'd rather use a full size canning pot. I inherited this pot from my mom.

I mean, I harvested my garlic scapes in June, stuck them in the fridge, and didn't make my annual batch of Garlic Scape & Pistachio Pesto until July. It makes no sense to me to offer ideas for what you could have done with your fresh produce from your Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share at a time when you no longer have that item to work with. So I opt to make, photograph, and sit on the recipes until I can post just in advance of when folks would be receiving their farm shares.


a close up view of roasted corn and hatch chile salsa



Second, as this month's recipes are showing, I made a lot of salsa last year. I'm so comfortable with salsa making that I'm teaching a salsa (how to can the tomato kind, not the dancing kind) class at my local community center next month. This year my cucumber vines are the darlings of the garden, so I am putting up several quarts of pickles each week. We'll do some taste testing over the winter and decide what's worthy of the website for next year.



the ingredients for roasted corn and hatch chile salsa
The ingredients for roasted corn and Hatch chile salsa--I used a many colored bell peppers from the farm share.


Third, if nobody likes a recipe, it doesn't get up on the website.  This recipe narrowly made it here. I don't care for the salsa straight out of the jar. It's too limey for my tastes, though I understand that to boiling water bath process these low acid vegetables you've got to add additional acid so that they are safely preserved.  I know that taste is subjective, and maybe someone else likes that amount of tang.

Monday, July 18, 2016

Salsa Verde with Roasted Hatch Chiles (Canning recipe)

This tangy green salsa gets bright flavors from tomatillos and roasted Hatch chiles for a smooth dipping sauce that is also excellent in baked dishes. This canning recipe provides ample stores to enjoy the flavor year round.


an assortment of jars of canned goods


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close up of a home-canned jar of salsa verde with roasted hatch chiles


This salsa is one of the easiest canning projects I've done--very little chopping, doesn't matter if you've chopped uniformly or not, only a few ingredients to measure. The immersion blender (and the chile roaster at my local grocery store) do the bulk of the work. The hardest part for me last year was sourcing the tomatillos.


tomatillos being chopped for salsa verde with roasted hatch chiles



In previous years I'd get ample amounts of tomatillos in my Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share. In fact, that's how I started making salsa verde. My first time making salsa verde was NOT born from a desire to eat salsa verde, but from a lack of anything else to do with the tomatillos that were sitting on the counter!



tomatillo plants in the garden, showing the balloons that will become tomatillo fruits


After the initial batch, we got hooked on this tangy concoction. Last year I had difficulty sourcing enough local tomatillos to make a batch. I even spent 2 Saturdays hitting up various farmer's markets in order to get enough. This year I'm growing my own tomatillos. So far, so good. Wish me luck!


a square image of jars of salsa verde and tomatoes from the canner


No Hatch chiles? No problem! Simply use the hot pepper that's available to you. It doesn't even matter if you roast it or not--the flavor will be different if using roasted peppers, but the recipe works either way. I can't give you any roasting tips because I buy my chiles already roasted. I picked up a container of roasted Hatch chiles once on a whim and I loved the flavor so much I come back year after year for more. Roasted chiles freeze well, so what doesn't get put up in salsas in the summertime gets used throughout the year. This year I'm going to try my hand at making chile rellenos with a quart, since we discovered that amazing concoction while Eating Locally on the Road last summer.


You could cool and eat this salsa right away, but I'm also giving canning instructions because this is my spouse's favorite salsa (mine is my Peach, Yellow Plum and Hatch Chile salsa recipe) and we eat salsa all year long. It's a terrific after school or pre-dinner snack, especially if you have family members who need to eat RIGHT NOW while you're standing in the kitchen finishing dinner preparations. Not that it's ever happened to me.

Friday, July 15, 2016

Grilled Korean-seasoned Chicken, Eggplant, and Pepper Rice Bowls

A summer dish made on the grill--Korean spiced chicken thighs grilled with farm share eggplant and peppers, topped with a fried egg and served in a rice bowl.


a close up of soy sauce being poured atop a fried egg with Korean-seasoned grilled chicken, eggplant, and peppers in a rice bowl

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I love an easy supper that can be--mostly--pulled off the grill and onto a bowl of rice. There's something very satisfying about eating from a bowl, and in the summer when it's hot it's rather nice to simply fire up the grill [and the rice cooker] and enjoy a complete meal.


a typical summer Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share box


When I came up with the idea for these bowls I already had chicken marinating in the fridge for my Korean-seasoned Grilled Chicken Thighs. I'd doubled the amount of chicken (on sale + on clearance) and skipped the marinated bag of veggies. But I had plenty of eggplant and bell peppers from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share, so I wanted to use them in a way the family would enjoy.


I was thinking of Bi Bim Bap, the Korean dish cooked/served in hot stoneware bowls with seasoned meats and veggies and an egg to finish. I decided to make do with what we had, and to make it on the grill. I opened against digging out the stoneware bowl I'd gotten for my spouse. Someday I'll  do him up a proper dish worthy of the bowl. I also opted against picking up some kimchi or making some Spicy Asian-inspired Pickled Kohlrabi because . . . summer heat sapped my oomph.