Alex occasionally blogs about her adventures in cooking. Her mad kitchen skills are one of the many reasons you could find her annoying. Another would be that she’s a adored among the kids at school who think she’s soooo beautiful. I would avoid her, but she’s ridiculously nice (and cool, and funny, and shares her recipes). Besides, the kids are right. She’s an attractive woman with three cutie pie boys to prove it’s genetics and not simply superficial style.

The specialty in the Alex home is Mexican food and so accordingly she cooks great meals for her familia. She’s posted posole, chicken tacos with each tortilla hand fried, and bean tostadas. Each of these served up with a side of salsa. I don’t pretend with myself. I can’t manage that – not even with all the love, adoration, and dedication I have to and for my family. Did I mention that my ancestral women folk worked? It’s a lame excuse since those women managed to work AND cook, but it’s all I got.

Ignoring my rationalizations and knowing I can’t cook, I decided to attempt Alex’s salsa. It was hard work. I slaved in the kitchen. And like my cookies, there was deviation from perfection. Fortunately, this is one of those informal recipes you get from gramma and friendly types. Precise measurements and enumerated directions are for Betty Crocker. And without further ado:

(Alex’s salsa photo)

1 28 oz. can petite diced tomatoes, unless you didn’t pay that close attention and got plain old diced tomatoes, which gives you a slightly chunkier texture
A generous sprinkle of garlic salt, however much that is
A few grinds of fresh pepper, as though you had fresh pepper
Juice of 1 key lime, or in my case lemon juice because I didn’t have a lime, much less a key lime, rolling around my kitchen
Seed and mince 4-6 jalapeños, but don’t try to put your contacts in afterward
Chop 1 onion, organic cancer fighter
Finely mince 1/2 bunch of fresh cilantro, or the whole bunch since there’s not much chance you’d use the other half, which would just go wasted like so many CSA greens
Mix it all together in a big bowl. The end.

We drank it out of margarita glasses with salty rims (that’s a joke). The salsa stood alone at my table, complimented only by the chips. Salsa is what was for dinner. I put the remainder in jars. See?

I ate one jar the next day and gave the other to Todd-o the following night. A half hour after saying goodbye to the final jar and after a couple of beers, Jesse went looking for the last bit of salsa and was peeved to find there was none. The moral of the story is that Alex’s forgiving salsa recipe must be solid if I could stir it up and a late night tipsy muncher would mourn the last bit.