Roasted Veggie Salsa and Chili sauce

I accidentally subscribed to Martha Stewart's Everyday Food, but it was a happy accident. I love the magazine - it is digest sized and chock full of simple gourmet recipes. Most of the recipes require a small list of ingredients. From this month's issue I immediately knew that I wanted to try and make the roasted salsa and chili sauce. I modified both a bit.

For the Salsa I did the following:
- roasted tomatoes, scallions, garlic, and jalapenos.
- once browned, put the items in a food processor with fresh cilantro and lime juice and coarsely chopped.

I added too much of both the lime and cilantro, so I added a can of petite diced tomatoes and a few dashes of salt to reduce the overpowering taste of both. It turned out beautifully! I love fresh salsa. When I tried the salsa later I determined that it was delicious but too mild. I simply added a dash of the chili sauce to a small bowl of salsa and it spiced it right up wonderfully.

For the chili sauce I varied the recipe quite a bit. I chose to roast the chilies instead of cooking over the stove - basically the ingredients were garlic and unseeded chili and jalapeno peppers but did not use as many as the recipe called for. I added ketchup and OJ for the base but I also substituted rice vinegar for the apple cider vinegar, brown sugar for the molasses and added a spoonful of hoisan sauce. Once the peppers, onions and garlic were roasted thoroughly I added to the food processor until liquefied.

Tomorrow I plan to make stir fry with rice noodles. I will cook in a regular Terriyaki base, but Ryan and I can add the chili sauce to our dishes to add a little spice.

The June 2011 edition Martha Stewart Everyday Food also had other great, easy recipes - several using cucumber, a lovely lime, shrimp and edamame rice bowl, white pizza, flank steak, broiled tofu, creamy salad dressing and more!