Add a little salsa to your life

Fall is the time of harvest, bringing in the bounty of the summer’s labors. Though the first hints of the chilly weather to come have been felt, I’m still waiting for all my tomatoes to ripen.
This spring, a friend gave me several heirloom varieties she grew in her greenhouse. I planted them in our newly tilled garden and watched as the spring rains nearly drowned the fledgling plants. My heirloom tomatoe plants withered and drooped through most of the summer, until I thought there was no hope. For safety, I planted a few other varieties in a separate bed.
But I’ve found these heirloom tomatoes to be a hardy lot. Perhaps that is why they have survived over the many years it takes to earn the moniker of ‘heirloom.’ My tomatoes decided to grab on to life during August and now have sprouted up to tall plants with green leaves and green tomatoes. Slowly, they are getting the first blush of ripeness. Meanwhile, my other tomatoe plants, who showed better signs of survival through the summer, aren’t any further along.
I examined the heirloom plants and found three slightly orange tomatoes with black and brown lines and spots on them. Not being familiar with the variety, I thought this meant fungus or insect infestation so I picked the less than ripe looking tomatoes to prevent further damage. I took them into the kitchen to see if I could cut off the offending parts. With paring knife in hand, I sliced through a thick skin to find brilliant red inside. These tomatoes were not only ripe, but delicious, with a thick, sweet inside.
They were the inspiration for the first batch of fresh salsa of the season.
I am horse-sitting for a friend who also asked me to water her tomato plants while she is gone.
“Go ahead and take home the ripe ones,” she said.
My salsa recipe is the kind you make up as you go. Whatever tomatoes you have go in and the more varieties, the better the batch. I mixed my heirloom jewels with some small orange tidbits and cherry tomatoes. Romas went under the knife with Better Boys. My favorite addition are the yellow, bell-shaped tomatoes and I was able to find several ripe ones in my garden.
My onions didn’t fare very well this year (probably due to the weeds I didn’t get around to pulling every day), but I was able to find about ten small heads hidden in the weed bed. I added in some yellow and green peppers from the grocery store. My pepper plants are all leaves and no peppers.
The one abundant thing in our garden is summer squash. I had three large, yellow specimens on the counter.
“I wonder what salsa tastes like if you grind up summer squash,” I asked my husband.
I ground and he tasted, finding the squash did not have much taste on its own. We decided it might add texture to the salsa and I needed to do something with the squash so into the bowl it went. Finish up with some cilantro, salt and lemon juice, and stir.
The result was quite colorful with reds, greens, oranges and yellows. The onions, though small, were powerful and the squash added a light crunch. My husband is the taste-tester for salsa and he proclaimed it, “the best batch ever.”
I will take this compliment, even though he says it about every batch of salsa I make. Perhaps it means I’m getting the recipe perfected. Or perhaps he just loves fresh salsa. That’s a good thing because if all the green tomatoes have enough warm weather to ripen before frost ends the garden season, I’ll be making many batches of salsa for the freezer.