It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...Christmas Salsa, that is!

Winter storms came early to Roswell and all across southeast New Mexico, closing the roads that would have carried us to Tucson for Thanksgiving break. Since our time at home has been extended at least a few hours - and since I happened to have all of the ingredients on hand - I decided to toss together a batch of Christmas Salsa.

Christmas Salsa? Does it have pine boughs and holly?

Actually, the name comes from the colors. The official question of New Mexico is: Red or Green? This refers to chiles and/or chile sauce. And if you want both, you order "Christmas." So, this Christmas Salsa is red & green...but don't start looking for tomatoes, because you won't find any in this sweet/hot salsa.

So, grab your bag of cranberries (red) and your jalapenos (green), and let's go!

The first step is to rinse, sort and rough chop your cranberries. Since they like to roll and jump when you cut them, I placed my cutting board inside a jelly roll pan. It really helps!


Once the cranberries are all chopped, toss them into a sauce pan with a cup of sugar and the juice from one lime. You will heat this gently to dissolve the sugar and get the flavors to start blending.

 
 While the cranberries are warming, chop your jalapenos, onion, and garlic. I like to remove the white "ribs" from the peppers, but I save as many seeds as I can. No, I am not a glutton for punishment. Those little seeds carry the heat that will contrast nicely with the sweet from the sugar and the tart from the cranberries.

Be careful while chopping the jalapenos. The capsaicin that gives you the heat will burn your eyes and other tender areas. Many people suggest using gloves. I'm too lazy for that...mostly I forget and figure if I am only chopping a few, it is no big deal. However, I can definitely feel the heat on my chapped hands and when I rubbed even close to my eye earlier, I got a bit of a wake-up call. Perhaps I should invest in those gloves.

I crush the garlic with a heavy mallet then chop it. I have tried just chopping, but the crushing really releases that garlic flavor. Christina, my friend who introduced me to Christmas Salsa, used green onions, However, I like the bolder flavor of the red onions. Plus they are pretty :)



Sugar is dissolved...Take the pan off the heat and add in the peppers, onions, and garlic. Let this cool while you chop some cilantro.

I never give amounts on the cilantro. While it add great flavor and (to me) a "freshness," there are folks who don't care for much, or any. When I am making this to share, I go light. If it is just me, I'll add more. The beauty of it is, you can always take along some extra chopped cilantro in case any heavy cilantro users are present.


The recipe makes 2 pints. These jars would have been full, except Chuck and I decided some quality control was needed. These are not processed for shelf storage, so store in the fridge and eat within a few days.

What do you do with it? Use it straight with chips. Soften a block of cream cheese, pour this over, and put out crackers or chips. And for Thanksgiving, Chuck and I are going to try some on our turkey breast.

This recipe is a good reason to buy extra cranberries at Thanksgiving time. They freeze great! Just pop the bag in the freezer as is. Then rinse and defrost - unless you are into trying to chop frozen cranberries...and if you do, please invite me over. I think it would be fun to watch them shoot all over your kitchen!

Christmas Salsa
(Adapted from a recipe given to me by Christina Parsley)
12 oz cranberries
1 cup sugar
Cilantro – finely chopped
Jalapeno – finely chopped (I used three, with chopped seeds)
Red onion, one medium, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 lime – juiced
cream cheese

Coarsely chop cranberries. Place in saucepan with sugar and lime juice. Heat gently until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat.

Add in jalapenos, garlic & onion. Once it has cooled a bit, add cilantro. Refrigerate overnight to let flavors blend.

After the flavors have had a chance to blend, you can do a taste test and add more jalapeno or onion. We found that the flavors actually mellowed a bit after sitting in the fridge a day or two. Plus the sweet from the sugar counter-acts some of the heat from the jalapenos.




Comments

  1. UnknownNovember 24, 2013 at 3:39 PM

    re garlic. You might have some luck by coarsely chopping garlic, then drop a good pinch of salt (kosher preferred) on the garlic and mash using side of knife blade. Easier to combine flavors plus nobody gets bit by a chunk of garlic they didn't expect.

    BTW nice job of blogging.

    Dad

    ReplyDelete

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