Oh, Salsa

You know those tastes from your childhood?  Not the perfect {velveeta} macaroni and cheese or homemade ice cream pie that your mother labored over, but the tastes that she intentionally tried to steer you away from and then eventually gave up and bought mass quantities of.

For me, it was chips and salsa.

For my brother, it was oreos.  Between the ages of 13-15, he probably consumed 5 million pounds of oreos.  And mom just kept buying them.  She especially enjoyed getting the oddly colored holiday ones.  So sweet {husky} {just at the time, very handsome now} brother would sit down after school each day and devour his neon orange or robin's egg blue or festive red iced oreos.  Don't you wish life was that simple now?

But I digress.  For me, I have distinct memories of killing an entire jar of salsa and bag of tostitos in one sitting. Bymyself.  No. Self. Control.  Things didn't improve much in college, except that I would purchase Trader Joe's flax seed {or something} chips and their "fresh" salsa.  A huge step up in nutrition {riiight} from tostitos restaurant style chips and medium salsa.  I am probably made of sodium at this point.

But no salsa was ever perfect.  Since my obsession has never died, I've been constantly on the lookout for the most excellent salsa.  It can't be that awful sort-of-chunky-sort-of-liquid business that comes in the low quality jars.  It has to commit: either very chunky (see fabulous pico) or very smooth.  As I'm sure you could tell from my food processor's involvement, this salsa is smooth.  It's also perfect.  Freshness from the lime and cilantro, spice from the chipotles in adobo sauce and fresh jalapeno, and depth from the roasted garlic.  Yes, please.

I also hear there's a certain sporting event coming up this weekend that might necessitate some intensely amazing salsa.  So you'd better hop on it.  I mean, let's not even try to pretend that I will be watching the Super Bowl for anything other than the commercials {when I remember...}, the super cute Harbaugh coaching face-off, and the fooooooood.

Roasted Garlic Chipotle Salsa

Makes one quart

1 head of garlic

1 28 oz can of whole tomatoes

Juice of 1 lime

3 tablespoons fresh cilantro

1 jalapeno, top sliced off

1 red onion, chopped into quarters

2-3 chipotles in adobo sauce (plus 1 tablespoon of sauce)

1 tablespoon cumin

1/2 tablespoon ground black pepper

First, to roast the garlic, slice the top (about 1/4 inch) off of a head of garlic.  Wrap the whole thing in tin foil and place in a 375 degree oven for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, dump all the other ingredients into a food processer and whirl away!  Add the roasted garlic at the end and whirl it, too!  If you're a spice wimp, start with just the jalapeno and one chipotle with the sauce.  We ended up with at least three chipotles, and I don't find it overly spicy, but I also love spice...

Tostitos chips, however, are still my favorite.  As long as we're talking about the multigrain scoops.