Blog Blitz #1: Summery Strawberry Salsa

I don't usually blog about anything but baking, but recently I have made a few cool dishes (that are simple and amazing) that I just needed to share. The very term "salsa" is defined as mixtures of raw food, which means no cooking at all, although I did later use it as a marinade. This was just too good not to share. Plus, the colours of the food was so amazing that they were begging for a photoshoot, and I have just figured out how to use my camera to get a half decent picture (I am a work in progress, believe me!) so I was a little excited.


A few coworkers and I were talking the other day about a really interesting recipe one of them found in a local paper that combined strawberries with jalapeno peppers. The combination sounded really weird, but actually pretty good - which got us to talking about other odd strawberry recipes we had seens.

You see, Southwestern Ontario has a lot of strawberries. A LOT of strawberries. Not that you'd know it, though, since the ones in the supermarket are still marked as imported from California (there is no logic to this one), but if you make it to a local market the whole place practically smells like a giant, ripe strawberry at this time of year. So it makes sense that there are a lot of recipes created to do this little fruit service.

Well I poked around on the internet and in a google search I found this recipe for strawberry salsa that looked so intriguing that I just needed to try it! However, I adapted it a little bit as I went along, and I was really pleased with my outcome. I found that the jalapeno was a little on the potent side, so I added two peaches, chopped, to the mix, which I thought soaked up a little more of the spicy (believe me, it was still HOT!)


I also topped mine with some grated cheese before serving, making it look a little more like a traditional salsa. My only other word of advice would be to gauge the cilantro - the taste is really delicious, but can be a bit overwhelming, so start a little under the proposed amount, and then add more if you need it.

The taste combination was really different, but in a good way. When I brought it to my cousin's birthday party it was demolished (by kids and adults alike) in less than five minutes flat!

I also doubled my recipe (I have a big family with a lot of appetite!) so I had some leftover the next day. My Mom and I got the idea to pack our chicken breasts in the rest of the salsa and bake it in there. WOW! What a delicious recipe that turned in to! The acid in the orange juice and lime really made the chicken tender, and there was this really neat spicy/cilantro-y taste that just infused into the meat. I will definitely make this as both a salsa, and a marinade again!