All You Roasted Tomato Salsa

Snacks go quickly in our house, so I am always making more. Lately, my two sons have been obsessed with homemade tortilla chips and I have been looking for dips and salsas to accompany them. I have tried a number of guacamole and salsa recipes, but I am always looking for that can't miss recipe. The June issue of All You magazine had a recipe for roasted tomato salsa that looked different than previous recipes I have attempted and perfect for my snack-oriented family.

My ancient Caloric oven's broiler has been broken for about 4 years, so I roasted the tomatoes, pepper, and jalapenos in batches in my convection toaster oven. It worked great, so the results were the same. The roasting did take longer than the suggested 10 minutes to char the tomatoes, I would say close to 20 minutes, but that might be related to using the toaster oven instead of a standard oven. All the ingredients for this recipe are basic and the plum tomatoes at my local grocery store were cheaper than any other tomato variety available. This salsa recipe does take slightly longer than other salsas, but it makes a very large batch of eight servings and has lasted in our fridge for multiple days.

This recipe has been received well by every member of my house and my in-laws. I like that the flavor of the charred tomatoes make for a nice well rounded salsa. Even my father in-law who shies away from spicy foods enjoyed this salsa recipe. The only thing that received complaints was that my husband wasn't a fan of the cumin, next time I make this recipe I will probably leave this ingredient out.

For the recipe go to All You Roasted Tomato Salsa.

Taco Two Ways: Chickpea Curry and Shredded Beef

I'm always at a loss as to what to do with leftovers in my house. My husband packs his lunch to work and most days that entails a frozen meal of some sort, because it's the easiest to transport. I try to eat as many leftovers as I can the next day, but I am often still left with a freezer full of past meals and no idea what to do with them. Recently my husband came up with a good solution for leftover chickpea curry and shredded beef: he made tacos.

For the curry tacos he used corn tortillas, placing Bengali chutney on one side, topped it with the leftover chickpea curry, yogurt and cilantro. The shredded beef taco consisted of the beef, green salsa, shredded Mexican cheese and topped with cilantro. Alternating the two tacos while eating cut down on the spicy flavor of the chickpea curry taco. It was a great way to use leftovers in a new way!

Bon Appetit Spicy Shrimp Quesadillas

Good ethnic food is limited in the area that I live, so I am always on the lookout for recipes. Last week I made Shrimp and Coconut Curry with Green Beans and kept the leftovers for Bon Appetit's Spicy Shrimp Quesadillas.

This meal is a great way to get two dinners from the same base recipe. My family loved the original shrimp dish and the leftovers make for quick prep for the quesadillas. I only had to buy minimal ingredients for this dish and the prep work took less than the suggested 35 minutes. I did not make any modifications to the original recipe, I thought that it worked great as written. The best quesadillas were the first two, which held together better than those that followed. This might have been due to the shrimp sitting in the mixture longer for the last batch or they might have been overstuffed.

This recipe was a hit with my kids. They both loved the quesadillas and ate them happily. This recipe benefited from the added heat from a tomatilla and chipotle salsa (recipe coming soon) that I made. This was a good fusion recipe that my whole family enjoyed and will go into my recipe file for future use.


For the recipe go to Bon Appetit Spicy Shrimp Quesadillas.