Fire Roasted Salsa

Salsa- the great party snack food. Why not make your own? It's easy. Fire roasted salsa has a great flavor, and it makes a nice appetizer while you are waiting for your meat to grill.

Again, I got the veggies at the local Mexican produce store, Country Farm Produce on Wolfe and Old San Francisco in Sunnyvale. I go there because they are a good variety of peppers, tomatoes and other veggies. And it's cheap- you can get a couple of bags full of veggies all for less than $10, while at a supermarket it will cost you 2-3 times as much.

Ingredients:

10 roma tomatoes

1 medium size red onion

2-3 garlic cloves

2 jalapeños

1 tbsp cumin

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp oregano leaves

1/2 bunch cilantro

juice of 2 limes

Cut the tomatoes and jalapeños lengthwise. Peel the onion and cut in half.

Place the tomatoes, onions and jalapeños on the grill.

When the start blistering and the skin starts to peel off of the tomatoes, they are done.

Blend them together with the rest of the ingredients. It will not all fit in the blender, so you may have to blend it in several stages and mix all together in a bowl.

Serve with fresh corn chips.

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Baked Baby Zucchinis and Chicken

If you have a farmers market in your town, you should definitely support it by going there. I know things are a lot more expensive than at the supermarket, but small local farms are also much more expensive to run than those mass produced farms that ship veggies across the country when they are still not ripe. If nothing else, it is a pleasant experience seeing all the vendors and their booths.

Last weekend I visited our local farmers market in Sunnyvale, and bought some organic baby squashes and zucchinis.

Ingredients:

2 chicken breasts

1 lb of baby squashes and zucchinis

1 pepper

1 carrot

4 small potatoes

fresh rosemary

salt, pepper, paprika, vegeta or other seasoning salt

olive oil

Preheat the oven to 400F.

Wash all the veggies, cut up potatoes, carrot and pepper. Leave baby squashes and zucchinis whole. Place all the veggies into a large bowl. Sprinkle the spices to taste and mix.

Cut each chicken breast into two thin slices.

Season them on both sides.

Place the chicken on the bottom of the baking dish. Then add oil to cover the bottom.

Place seasoned veggies over the chicken. Distribute rosemary branches in between the vegetables.

Bake at 400F for 1 hour. Then turn the chicken, and bake for another 30 minutes.

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Where to buy tasty fresh produce in the Bay Area?

Here is a topic that I would like to turn into a discussion for all of you Bay Area people.

A very good friend of mine came to my house the other day and told me a horrifying story- he bought 2 bags of oranges at Safeway and they were dry and tasted like sawdust. He could not eat them. In his words, the only thing he could do with them was move them to the garbage can.

I am sure most of us have experienced produce that tastes like shredded cardboard at some point. Now the question is: how do you know where to buy what? Trial and error takes time and money before you work out the most optimal shopping routine.

I invite everyone to share their experiences and recommendations for the best produce stores in the Bay Area. Everyone that eats will benefit from each others suggestions and recommendations.

Please send them in the Email form to tastymakeshappy@gmail.com and I will post them in the relevant topic. Please include the title and an article about your experience regarding a specific food you bought and your recommendation.

Thank you everyone for participating!