salsa – Peaceful Reader

The end of school vacation is here. {try not to sob}

Summer remains-I prefer a long summer. This summer was the busiest I’ve had in a long time. Two grad classes to spark my imagination and recreate my classroom and two lovely vacations to relax my brain and prepare for the year ahead. I’m ready to celebrate more JOY at school and at home. I’ve finally fallen head first back into my yoga practice and feel ready to keep that going every day with intention. Today as I practiced my mind took me back to Loon Lake in Northern Minnesota. A perfectly calm place to be.

Groovy Girl is back at the dance thing and we’ll spend 4 nights at the studio each week. We’ve picked up a small batch of school supplies here and there. Today she managed to choose a new backpack (difficult b/c of ALL the choices) but she prefers to wait until her classes begin to see what she really needs. I’m freaked out about the need for a $180.00 graphing calculator…? I’m also shocked that my baby is a junior in high school and my firstborn is about to graduate from college! My – how time flies. It seems like yesterday that I was rocking my way through library grad school with a 6-year-old and a baby. And now I’m in my 16th year of teaching.

This past week I’ve made new binders for myself, got a little organized, mentally prepared my brain, and made a new batch of my homemade salsa. My mom has huge batches of tomatoes and I wanted to remind myself of all the steps so I did it alone one night this week; chopping onions, banana peppers, jalapenos, and skinning 20 cups of hot tomatoes while listening to music. It was magic in motion and a whirlwind of hot, spicy, and a few tears shed to get to the final-6 jars of salsa!

I made a simple dinner tonight with farmers market fare and I’ve had a lovely glass of pinot noir. I ate an amazing dark chocolate bar with blackberry sage and I shared with G, J, and K. In a few minutes, I’m going off to do a little bedtime yoga. This year is going to fly by and I want it to begin (and end) with flare. Are you ready for school?

(cranberry salsa)

Over the last few weeks I’ve done a lot of cooking. When I cook I like to cook with love, with feeling, with happy thoughts in my head which takes me beyond the mundane of just cooking a meal, if that makes sense. It’s more than that or I might as well stop and go buy a take-out pizza!

We had guests to entertain a few nights before New Year’s Eve and I wanted to prepare a few special recipes. I had already made this hummus recipe because Eldest daughter likes it so I planned to serve that with crisp celery and a variety of crackers including these snappy little rice crackers from Blue Diamond that I love. I planned on serving quesadillas cut into thin wedges for an appetizer and served some of our own famous salsa with that. I wanted something just a little bit more and found it in this cranberry salsa recipe that I served with those little scoop chips that are perfect for well, scooping dips.

Cranberry Salsa

12 oz. cranberries

1 granny smith apple

1 red or orange pepper

3 T. cilantro

3 T. pickled jalapenos

1/2 of a red onion, diced

1/3 cup apple juice

3/4 cup sugar

Chop first six ingredients. Mix apple juice with sugar in a small saucepan and heat until dissolved. Mix juice mixture with chopped ingredients and stir thoroughly. Refrigerate for 2 hours before serving.

My modifications: I didn’t chop up the cranberries because I like whole berries so I added the berries to the cooking apple juice (I used cider) and let them pop, pop, pop. I replaced the sugar with honey because why not?

This dip is tangy and wonderful on a tortilla! Our friends wanted some to take home with them (and they took a container of hummus as well!). I took a small container of it with me to work on Thursday and Friday and ate if with blue chips for lunch and I still have a little leftover for a sometime soon treat.

hummus plate mid-preparation

The original recipe is published in a school cookbook our staff put together a year or two ago. I found that recipe while I was looking for my friend Stephanie’s margarita recipe. Two recipe hits just pages from each other. The margaritas were a perfect balance for the spicy appetizers on our table.

I used Katie Workman’s The Mom 100 Cookbook to pre-make our New Year’s Day brunch menu. My mother-in-law made a french toast dish like this for us one year at the beach but dang if I could not find that recipe. It is such an annoyance when I know I’ve had a recipe but I’ve lost it in the midst of my recipe chaos. Katie saved me though as I paged through a few books looking for something similar. This one is it exactly I believe. It was so delicious served with warmed maple syrup and a dap of real whipped cream. I’ll save that one for next week’s post.

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads where many other fabulous food-related posts are waiting for you to check them out.

Tag: salsa

Back to school

Weekend Cooking; Party treats