Up to Your Knees in Tomatoes? Try Unpeeled Tomato Salsa

I’ve done well keeping up with the produce this season—until this week. We went out to eat twice. Big mistake; that’s all it takes for the tomatoes and peppers and okra and everything else to start piling up.

I had used oodles of tomatoes making tomato bisque and more gazpacho over the weekend, but there were still plenty. I had the idea of making jambalaya, a great thing to make when all sorts of produce is piling up, but I had put it off. Suddenly it was Thursday and there were still a LOT of tomatoes around, even though I put them in eggs, on every sandwich, in cottage cheese, layered with mozzarella and basil, and on and on.

Salsa sounded good, but peeling a bunch of tomatoes to make it did not. So, I thought, let’s experiment. I got out my Swiss Zyllis vegetable chopper (the kind they sell at fancy kitchenware parties; a neighbor lured me to one of those parties years ago, so I have one). I chopped a lot of tomatoes, cored but unskinned, and a few peppers, plus some garlic and onion. Then I added some herbs and spices, and I think the experiment was successful. It’s a bit hot, but not uncomfortably so—serve it with a little sangria and it will balance out nicely, I think.

Quick and Easy Unpeeled Tomato Salsa

8-10 very ripe tomatoes, cored* but not peeled
2-3 bell peppers, green or red or purple or yellow
2 red chile peppers
2 jalapenos, roasted
4 cloves garlic
1 small onion
1 teaspoon chopped fresh oregano (you could substitute chopped fresh basil)
½ tsp. chili powder
½ tsp. coriander
¼ tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. lime juice

*Core the tomatoes by cutting out the white center in a cone shape around the stem end of the fruit.

Slice the tomatoes, then chop them finely with the food chopper. Toss them in a good size bowl, pulling out any large pieces of skin that don’t get chopped. Roast the jalapenos by holding them over a gas flame with a fork, or put them under the broiler for a couple of minutes. Scrape off the black bits. Seed all the peppers, the bell peppers, chile peppers, and roasted jalapenos, and chop them up finely. Throw them in the bowl. Chop the garlic and onions and add them to the bowl. Stir things up with a spoon, add the spices and lime juice, and enjoy with chips. Makes about 3-4 cups.

Addendum: Refrigerate overnight (or at least for several hours) to let the flavors meld before serving this salsa.