Simply: Home Cooking

Roasted Tomato (or Tomatillo) Salsa

This recipe provides a great way to use up the last of the season’s tomatoes—roasting them brings out the sweetness that might be lacking in tomatoes hurriedly picked in advance of the first frost. You can use your favorite chili pepper to achieve the amount of kick you prefer.

Delicious as a lowfat dip, dressing and accompaniment for Mexican dishes. But my favorite use is as part of a savory breakfast: serve hot on eggs (any style) with black beans, tortillas, some grated cheese, and a drizzle of cilantro sauce.

Makes approximately 1/2 c.

Ingredients:

• 1 pt cherry or smallish tomatoes, washed, stems removed
• 1-2 chili peppers (optional): jalapeño, serrano, aji, habañero...anything goes!
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled
• 2-4 T chopped fresh cilantro
• salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
• sugar to taste (optional)
• lime juice, lemon juice, red wine vinegar, or rice vinegar to taste (optional)

Method:

1. Cut the tomatoes in 1/2 and arrange on a broiler pan, cut side up.
2. Cut the chili peppers in 1/2, remove the seeds for less heat, and arrange on the broiler pan, cut side down.
3. Put the garlic cloves on the broiler pan.
4. Broil just until the tops of the vegetables are barely blackened. Turn the garlic so both sides brown. You may have to remove some of the vegetables earlier and leave others to broil for longer.
5. Place the broiled tomatoes, garlic, and chili peppers in a food processor, and pulse until the salsa is the consistency you prefer—I like mine fully puréed, but you can leave it slightly chunky as well.
6. Season to taste with cilantro, salt, pepper, sugar, and citrus juice or vinegar—you may not need the sugar or acid at all.
7. Serve at room temperature.

Variations:

Also works great with tomatillos: remove the papery husk and rinse the tomatillos in a bowl of warm water before slicing and broiling.

Do ahead:

• The salsa will keep for up to 2 weeks in a tightly covered jar in the refrigerator.
• Also suitable for canning.

Download Roasted Tomato Salsa

Paying the farmer's asking price...and increasing the farmer's share

Rural SCALE recently released a study on the affordability of local food for the average consumer, collecting data from 24 farmers’ markets in 19 communities in 6 southeastern states. The study concludes that

Overall, farmers markets in the Southeast and Appalachia are highly competitive with mainstream supermarkets in their pricing on a range of commonly consumed foods, including produce, meats and eggs. (Emphasis in the original.)

Naturally, one might draw different conclusions from similar studies of other regions, but there are some interesting statistics (and generalizable conclusions?) about size of community and prices at farmers’ markets that sell to moderate- and low-income patrons, those who might believe that the local food movement has passed them by.

Then consider this graphic by the National Farmers Union: Farmer’s Share of Retail Food Dollar. I’m not so interested in the startling figures on processed foods (soft drinks, potato chips, bread) because few of the raw ingredients are actually supplied by a farmer. Far more disturbing are the figures on whole, minimally processed ingredients. Take the produce section of a conventional supermarket (think Safeway, Kroger, etc.), for example: farmers receive anywhere from 10.3 cents on the dollar for lettuce to 30 cents on the dollar for carrots.

Now think about buying this produce at a farmers’ market or directly from a farmer: if it’s true that the prices at the farmers’ market are comparable to those of the supermarket for comparable items, the farmer will suddenly have $4.59 (instead of $1.38) in his pocket for 5 pounds of carrots; $3.08 (instead of $0.27) for a pound of tomatoes, etc.

Buying local food at the farmers’ market certainly seems like a win-win for farmers and consumers.