Cateland White was our “spotlight” cheese maker in the August, 2015 issue of our Moos-Letter (click here). She is a writer and we are deeply honored that she has found the time to share her “global warming” salsa recipe (and story) with us:
Having grown up on a farm in Texas, my many, many attempts to grow anything here in Las Vegas by ‘normal’ methods has been frustrating and expensive: poor soil quality means building raised beds and buying all the soil to fill them. It means buying earthworms, Lady Bugs, mulch, manure and compost. It means huge water bills, constant monitoring and learning how to control sunlight exposure. Can you picture a garden with parasols?!? Actually, I wish I’d taken pictures because it was kind of picturesque…
The winter of 2014-2015 really wasn’t; record high temperatures allowed me to bed all my garden plants by the second week in February. For the first time in twenty years it looked as if I was finally going to have a real garden and I was over the moon! I dreamed of luscious red tomatoes topped with fresh mozzarella and fresh basil, drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, nestled amidst slices of fresh Italian bread. By the last week in April my garden looked like Eden and the tomato plants were absolutely loaded with big beautiful green gems; I had to tie up vines by the ton! My corn was as high as an elephant’s eye. Squash and watermelon vines twisted up trellises; beans nestled beneath the corn, providing nitrogen I didn’t have to buy. Such bliss! Such joy!
What was it John Lennon said about life being what happens when you’re busy making other plans?
The first week of May, Las Vegas hit triple digit temperatures and there was nothing I could do to save my babies. As tender leaves and shoots dried up and died in the blistering heat, I ranted, I raved, I cried and cursed carbon dioxide. Not only did I lose my tomatoes, I lost my corn and squash, too, because we no longer have pollinators like bees and butterflies here. I built bee houses and planted Monarch milkweed gardens but they did not come.
I picked the green tomatoes and pulled everything else. What to do now? Even a southern girl can only eat fried green tomatoes so many times. I remembered my grandparent’s made ‘chow-chow,’ a kind of pickle relish, out of their (very few) leftover green tomatoes but I had way too many. That’s when I had the idea to make salsa. We eat a lot of it at my house. And, I consoled myself, I’d save money over buy store bought. That is until I figured that each jar of my homemade salsa, all things considered, cost over $50. I cried and cursed carbon dioxide some more.
This is a basic template which makes 12 cups of mild salsa. I didn’t list chopped jalapeño peppers but feel free to throw them in. In fact, feel free to throw in anything your little frustrated heart desires. Experiment with spices and amounts. Taste. Taste. Taste. Embrace it! Make it your own! You can half the recipe or – as I did – double it.
