The tastiest, easiest salsa recipe ever

If you grow a successful garden, you are overflowing with tomatoes just about now.

We sure are, and I want to share the recipe we use to transform this bounty into one of the tastiest, easy-to-make salsas ever invented.

I gave a jar to our foodie friends, who called us after eating it asking what the secret ingredient is, because it is so damn good.  

If you own a food processor, you can make a quart of salsa in less time that it takes five people to eat it.  Why do I know this?  Ahem.  

We made 3 gallons worth of salsa in an hour, so do the math!  This recipe is one batch at a time, so just multiply the recipe according to how many tomatoes you have!

Here's how to do it, one batch at a time:

Ingredients

8 tomatoes
1 bell pepper
1 cup cilantro
1/2 cup red onion
juice from 1 lime
4 cloves of garlic
1 tsp cumin
salt and pepper to taste
cayenne or anything spicy (optional) to taste

A word about the tomatoes: We grow several varieties, including Roma, Big Beef, Cherry, Early Girl, and a bunch of heirloom ones.  Some of these are considered good for fresh eating, some for sauces, some for canning, and so on.  For the purpose of this salsa, we don't care about it.  Use whatever you have, and mix them all up.

A word about spice: I'm a wimp.  Period.  I don't do spicy.  At.  All.  So if you want spicy salsa, add cayenne or hot sauce, or whatever it is you people like to add to food to make it inedible spicy.  Some members of my family add hot sauce to their own bowls.  More power to them.

A word about cilantro:  Some people don't like cilantro, and that's okay.  We still love you.  I use cilantro every single day and even put it in my smoothie.  Why?  It's an incredible detoxifier and immune system booster, helps the body get rid of heavy metals, is a powerful antioxidant and protects against cardiovascular disease.  In other words: eat your cilantro.

Directions

- Cut tomatoes in half, cut out the green stem part.

- Cut onion, garlic, and bell pepper into large chunks.

- Throw this into a food processor and pulse five to ten times, enough to break the pieces down but not liquefy them.

- Add cumin, lime juice, cilantro, salt and pepper (and the spicy stuff if you want it).

- Pulse again until you like the consistency.  We like some chunks in our salsa.

Eat it!  Eat it!  Or it keeps in the fridge for some time.

Since we make gallons of this stuff, we freeze it in ziplock bags.  It's super easy that way, and although it makes the salsa a little runny after it defrosts, who cares?  We don't mind it at all, and use the more liquid stuff that's left over after everyone dipped the chunks up with chips for making omelettes and stir fries.

Don't ask me about canning this.  You have to make sure there's enough acid in salsa if you want to can it, and it's best to use recipes that are specifically for canning.

Also, it helps to use tomatoes with noses.