{"id":2326,"date":"2010-08-02T09:15:31","date_gmt":"2010-08-02T13:15:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heidiannie.com\/?p=2326"},"modified":"2010-08-02T09:15:31","modified_gmt":"2010-08-02T13:15:31","slug":"heirloom-tomatoes-and-a-salsa-recipe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.heidiannie.com\/?p=2326","title":{"rendered":"Heirloom tomatoes and a Salsa Recipe…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"heirloom<\/a> <\/p>\n

Growing up in the greenhouse business, I didn’t get a lot of exposure to heirloom tomatoes.  Our business was to sell the best growing and producing vegetables- and in the late fifties and sixties (1950’s-1960’s) that meant hybrids.  We had Marglobes and Rutgers, Jubilee, Big boy, Early girl- all hybridized to give large, virtually seedless, and consistent fruit.  The idea was not to preserve the past, but to improve the tomato!<\/p>\n

That has changed in these times of organic, local, and heritage vegetable consumers.  Now there is a great emphasis on the old stock of tomatoes and there are businesses that only sell heirloom seeds – which I like- but there is also the question on the use of these tomatoes- some of which have strange shapes that make cutting difficult.  <\/p>\n

\"lavender<\/a> <\/p>\n

There is also the dense center vein and the blossom cavity at the bottom of the heirloom beefsteak tomato that makes using them a challenge.<\/p>\n

Cutting these areas out greatly diminishes the usablility of the heirlooms- you sometimes end up with only half of the vegetable that can be used in a recipe.<\/p>\n

I have found that the flavor and the historical romance is worth the inconvenience of the waste- and have found a way to utilize even the “wastage” by cooking them up into a sauce that can be used in soups or spiced up with herbs, onions and garlic to make into a pasta sauce.  If you are making a salsa, use the pretty part of the tomato for your recipe and save the cut away portions to cook down later.<\/p>\n

\"heirloom<\/a> <\/p>\n

For this salsa recipe, I used these tomatoes, pepper, and onion.<\/p>\n

Normally, I would use jalapeno peppers, but this yellow pepper was supposed to be sweet- and when I cut into it to use for a different recipe, the veins and smell told me otherwise.  One touch of my finger to my tongue gave the secret away completely- HOT!!- very HOT!   So I decided to use it in my salsa!<\/p>\n

I had  two red tomatoes and many more orange and yellow- so my salsa is more in shades or yellow, orange, green and red- rather than the typical red and green variety.<\/p>\n

Ingredients:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

1 large hot pepper, or several small jalapeno peppers, diced small<\/strong><\/p>\n

3 or 4 tomatoes, chopped<\/strong><\/p>\n

1 medium sweet onion, diced small<\/strong><\/p>\n

1 large handful cilantro, chopped finely<\/strong><\/p>\n

juice of 1 lime<\/strong><\/p>\n

salt and pepper,<\/strong> to taste<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chop everything up to a uniform size- I usually leave the tomatoes slightly larger because I like a bigger bite of tomato.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"heirloom<\/a> <\/p>\n

Mix vegetables up together, add juice and stir well.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Get out a tortilla chip and taste, add salt and pepper according to your pleasure- and enjoy!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Save up your tomato scraps until you get at least 1 1\/2 cups (or you can supplement with a whole tomato to expedite your sauce) and then cook down in a saucepan with about 1\/2 cup water added.  Add oregano, basil, garlic, sauteed onions, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper to taste and you have a fresh made pasta sauce.  Bring sauce to a slow boil- bubbles will form and pop slowly within your sauce and it will thicken slightly after being reduced- about 1 hour cooking time.<\/p>\n

( If you like, you can run the sauce through a sieve to get the pulpy and dark tomato parts out- but they aren’t really noticeable once it is all cooked down and I usually let them add to the slight texture of this homemade sauce.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Growing up in the greenhouse business, I didn’t get a lot of exposure to heirloom tomatoes.  Our business was to sell the best growing and producing vegetables- and in the late fifties and sixties (1950’s-1960’s) that meant hybrids.  We had … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recipes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heidiannie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heidiannie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heidiannie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heidiannie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heidiannie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.heidiannie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2326\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heidiannie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heidiannie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heidiannie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}