Our Most Excellent Blender Salsa

I've been feverishly testing and working on several new recipes to share with you, and my hope was that at least one of them would be blog-ready by now.  But alas, I toil on.  This salsa is by no means a consolation prize though.  It just happened that I made it on Friday, which is not at all unusual, and it occurred to me that I have not yet told you about it.  This is a major oversight for which I apologize with all my heart.   And seeing as how it's the best salsa on the planet, I decided this would be a good time to share.

We're more than a little picky about our salsa here in the Circle B Kitchen.  Living in Southern California for most of our lives, we were very in tune with the reverence with which salsa, good salsa, is regarded.  For me, a Mexican restaurant is firstly judged on the quality of its salsa and secondly on its ability to turn out great rice and beans.

I realize that there are really good jarred salsas on the store shelves these days, and if we buy salsa, we're partial to the Border Grill brand.  But truly and sincerely, there is just nothing like freshly made salsa.  And this here's the way we like it.  

I will now humbly retract the statement in the first paragraph about this being the best salsa on the planet.  No such thing.  We all have our faves and this just happens to be ours.  Here's the recipe...

Our Most Excellent Blender Salsa

(recipe courtesy of Tom, a most excellent son who makes very excellent salsa)

Click here for a printable recipe

This makes a lot of salsa, so it's great for a crowd, but it's super easy to just halve the recipe if you'd like.  Be sure to use crushed tomatoes.  They provide the perfect consistency.  Also, we're not big fans of the flavor of raw garlic, so I place the garlic cloves in the microwave for like 3 or 4 seconds or as long as it takes to heat them through and sort of cook and soften them which takes out that sharp, raw flavor.

2 14-oz cans crushed tomatoes (or 1 28-oz can)
1/2 cup diced onion
2 cloves garlic (see headnote)
2T white wine vinegar (or lime juice)
2 chipotle chiles in adobo sauce (or more if desired)**
2 tsp salt
a good handful of cilantro sprigs
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar

Place (1) 14-oz can (or half of the 28-oz can) into the blender with the other ingredients.  Process until smooth. Add in the remaining can of tomatoes and pulse once or twice so the tomatoes stay in little chunks. Taste and add more salt or chipotle if needed.  Keep refrigerated.

** After opening the can of chipotle in adobo, I run the whole thing through the blender and place that in a jar.  It will keep several centuries like this and it's so much easier to use.  For this recipe I use close to a tablespoon, or half that if you're halving the recipe.