Easy Salsa

I LOVE homemade salsa and would eat it all the time if I wasn't the one who had to make it. Besides the endless chopping, my other problem with homemade salsa is that it has to be eaten within 3 days for optimal flavor, and it'll almost always go bad by day 5.

There are two women who's recipes I trust implicitly, my aunt, Katie, and my friend, Kirstin. Every time I eat their food I think, "Man, I hope I can do this one day!" And, they're always lovely about sharing their recipes. This summer, I got to try their salsa recipes, and I was thrilled to notice that they were very similar. When I heard that both were made in the food processor, I was sold! Note: the picture above was taken 6 days after the salsa was made. It lasts so long and is a thousand times better than a jar of Pace Picante.

1 large can tomatoes (Aunt Katie recommends petite diced)
1 small can diced green chiles

1 yellow bell pepper
1 small white onion or 1 bunch green onions
1/2 T garlic, crushed I used about 3-4 medium cloves, but I really like garlicky salsa
1 T sugar
1 T salt
1/4 c jarred jalapenos or 1/2 can EL PATO tomato sauce (Kirstin says that you can find this in the mexican aisle, in the YELLOW can, not green. If you want it to be hotter you can add more of this, I never do.)

1/2 bunch cilantro (Aunt Katie says stems and all, just cut a bit above the elastic that holds the bunch together)

1 large lime

In food processor, process onion, pepper, garlic, salt, sugar, lime juice.

Remove 1/2 into large bowl and process remained with jalapenos and cilantro. Add to bowl. I put my kids in charge of processing, so I, uh, didn't bother with separating out 1/2 to preseve the texture. They ground it quite fine before I realized what was going on :)

Add tomatoes to bowl and stir (Aunt Katie and Kirstin have thrown these in the processor, but Aunt Katie points out that if you get petite diced tomatoes, you can put them in after processing. We like our salsa chunky, so we did this).

*Aunt Katie notes if you want the salsa thicker, add a 4 oz can of tomato paste.
*Kirstin recommends letting the salsa refrigerate overnight to let the flavors blend.