Fresh Tomato Salsa

Another treat we enjoyed at the harvest luncheon that I mentioned yesterday is Julie Tschida’s fresh tomato salsa. She’s been experimenting with this recipe for about two years and I can vouch that she has definitely come up with “a winning combination.”

When Julie makes it, almost all the ingredients are from her own garden. Not only does she tend two big vegetable gardens, three raspberry plots (black, red, golden), two strawberry beds and nine apple trees, this “Queen of Gardening” also has nine flower gardens! She raises 250 varieties of hostas and many other perennials as well as a few annuals.

Julie likely first inherited her “green thumb” from her mother, Martha Kutter, as she helped her every year with vegetable gardening while growing up in Grey Eagle, Minnesota.  She credits her late aunt, LaVonne Heffron, for getting her interested in flower gardening after her mom passed away 23 years ago. Surely, they are both smiling down from above on Julie and all the plant life she cultivates and loves. CJK

Fresh Tomato Salsa

(Julie Tschida)

3 cups grape or Roma tomatoes, ground or finely chopped

1/2 cup onion, finely diced

1 large bell pepper, finely chopped

2-3 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup finely chopped cilantro

Juice of 1/2 lime

1-3 jalapeño peppers, deseeded and finely chopped

1 tsp. sugar

2 tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. black pepper

Combine the tomatoes, onion, bell pepper, garlic, cilantro and lime juice in a mixing bowl. Add one finely chopped jalapeño pepper, sugar, salt and black pepper to the mixture. Mix well and taste. If you would like more heat in the salsa, add one or two more jalapeños. (Also, adjust the lime juice, sugar, salt, and black pepper to your taste.)

Cover the mixture and refrigerate until ready to serve. Serve with tortilla chips or on Mexican-style dishes.

Yield: 6 servings

A note from Julie: It’s hard to give exact measurements for this recipe. I taste it all along when I’m preparing it.

Sometimes I turn it into a Corn and Black Bean Salsa by adding freshly cooked corn (or 3/4 to1 can corn) and 3/4 to1 can black beans. Again, cooks should create it to suit their own taste. Often I’ve felt that adding a full can of beans may be too much for this particular recipe.

A note from Carol: During growing seasons Julie is busy canning sauerkraut, pickles, salsa, tomatoes and beans, freezing corn and, occasionally, baking apple pies and crisps. And, as one would expect from a “gardening angel,” she’s also very generous with the fruits of her harvest and plants to get others started with growing their own.

The secretary/receptionist for 10 years at Catholic Education Ministries in the Diocese of St. Cloud (Minnesota), Julie and her husband, Dave, are members of St. Stephen Parish in St. Stephen, Minnesota. They are the parents of three grown children and grandparents to eight-month-old Ella.

Julie is also quite a photographer! She took these photos — a close-up of an “Essence of Summer” hosta that she raised this year and a glimpse of her extensive hosta garden.