And Now it is August

A Salsa Summer

i prefer salsa fresca (fresh) e cruda (uncooked)

i prefer hand chopped ripe tomatoes / sweet onions like walla walla or Texas Sweets / jalapeno chiles / squeezes of lemon / a little olive oil to smooth it over / maybe a shake of Real Salt

big handful fresh cilantro rough chopped added just before serving/eating

i bought three kinds of chips to see which i like best / the first ones i bought this season were too thick and not crispcrunchy

to become a candidate in the chip competition the chip must be organic, no gmo, no hydrogenated oils

the current candidates are :

BEARITOS all natural Tortilla Chips made with organic yellow corn

GARDEN OF EATIN’ Blue Chips all natural tortilla chips made with organic blue corn

both of the above are in the traditional triangular shape

GARDEN OF EATIN’ MINI yellow rounds all natural bite-size tortilla chips / these are cute / hold skimpy amount of salsa most of it on your thumb

the mini’s are better smeared with a little goat cheese and then dipped in the salsa giving the salsa something sticky to adhere to and upping the treat to a more substantial “mouth feel”

speakina goat cheese i am on a goat cheese making exploration

Sunday is milk run day / we/i drive to LaSal / a rural ranching community 25 miles s/se of Moab where a pretty young woman of the Lakota raises a herd of goats

the trip through awe-inspiring rock walls cliffs and canyons with the Blues (the Abajo Mountains) on the distant right is an invigorating treat

we get several gallons of fresh raw goat milk / visit the “girls” and bring them fruits from our trees to thank them for their gift

to the fresh raw goat milk i add a culture from Scandinavia called “fil mjolk” (there is an accent jigger somewhere over “mjolk”) / the culture encourages the milk to coagulate / the curds separate from the whey after a day or two

the curds and whey are poured through a clothlined colander and tied up into a bag and hung over a bowl to drain / the whey drips out / in a day or two when the dripping has ceased open the bag and remove lovely creamy fresh goat cheese

the whey is tasty to drink tart and refreshing when chilled / Dought likes a bowl of it / so does the pretty little climbing rose i brought back from California

the fil mjolk culture when fed with heavy cream makes a divine creme fraiche / fed with half and half makes a lighter version / fed with coconut milk makes a charming addition to curries / fed with soy milk keeps a vegan happy

being multi-cultural we have several others like kefir and yogurt

now back to the salsa

having enlisted a dozen tomato plants of varying styles there are a lot of tomatoes / a LOT of tomatoes

the tomatillo volunteers are a sturdy and courageous bunch / they are pushing and shoving at the tomato plants / the little tomatillos popping out of their skins in their rush to be sent to the front

some of them are the purple ones

tomatillos love to get together with green chiles to make salsa verde or chile verde

i expect to can some of this combination to use this winter for pork and avocado burritos with chile verde / or for chicken chile verde enchiladas and tamales

o yum / almost forgot about making tamales

allora, tutti sta bene, ciao