As Plato once said, "Necessity is the mother of invention." As such, I have given birth a new salsa recipe. I happen to love salsa and am quite the connoisseur, if I do say so myself. And I do. So, I had a few friends over for an impromptu night of Euchre, and we absentmindedly forgot to retrieve salsa from the local Kroger - bad news!

So, I whipped out my new food processor (sidebar: I upgraded from a "chopper" to a full-fledged processor with the intent to prepare baby food in the not-to-distant future.) and mixed up a batch of salsa using items I had readily available.

Heretofore I had expounded upon the virtues of Don Pablo's salsa, and the made-in-the-restaurant salsa of Los Bravos (a local Atlanta CheapMex™ chain). I can proudly say that I will not be needing to procure these any longer! Although that will probably reduce my marguerita intake, but I digress.

So, without further adieu, my salsa recipe, including various taste modifiers.

Basic Red Salsa Recipe

• 1 can diced tomatoes. I've tried several versions, and the best is Contadina's Roasted Garlic Tomatoes. Since these can be hard to come by (I luckily got a 12 pack on my last trip to BJ's), I've resorted to using Kroger brand No Salt Added. It's not bad.
• 1 can ROTEL. You have several choices here. The best tasting is the Mexican version with lime and cilantro. It's not a heavy cilantro flavor, so it won't overpower the salsa. If you want heat, go with the Extra Hot flavor - but get some cilantro (not too much!) to add some flavor.
• 2 heaping tablespoons minced garlic. This is something you should have in your 'fridge at all times anyway. You can use fresh if you like - if you do, make sure you roast it! Also, make sure you get some of the garlic juice from the bottom of the jar.
• ¼ cup of peppers. You have several choices here, obviously based on the amount of heat you want. Everest: habanero. McKinley: jalapeno. Kilimanjaro: poblano. Backyard: serrano. You can also get pickled versions too, for a bit of "afterbite". I mainly used serrano for taste and jalapeno for heat. Just drop them in whole, washed and without stems.
• Lime Juice to taste. If you got the ROTEL Mexican variety, you only need a bit of this, or perhaps none.
  
• Fresh Cilantro. Go easy on this. It doesn't take much to overpower the salsa! If you got the ROTEL Mexican variety, you only need a bit of this, or perhaps none.
• Red Pepper, Crushed & Dried. You should have some of this in your pantry anyway. Just a couple of teaspoons of this for some pizzazz.

Now it's time to chop, dice, frappe, or whatever. If you like your salsa chunky, you need only to dice the peppers and just stir the remaining ingredients in. If you like your salsa more pourable, as I do, just drop everything in the blender/food processor and go to town on it!

Coming up next... tomatillo (green) salsa!