Red salsa

Ingredients:

• 3.5 pounds of tomatoes
• 6 jalapeno peppers
• 6 serrano peppers
• 1 white onion
• garlic (maybe half the cloves from a bulb)
• half a package of fresh basil
• a bunch (or half a bunch?) of cilantro

• juice of 2 small lemons (about 1/4 cup)
• 3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon salt

What to do:

1. In a big pot, bring at least 2" of water to the boil and scald the tomatoes in groups of 4 or so, drain them, let them cool a bit, and remove the skins.

   Empty the water from the pot and set it aside to cool.

2. Peel the garlic cloves, and cut up the peppers and onion as follows:
   1. Chop half of the onion very fine, leaving the other half in a couple of big chunks.
   2. Cut the tops off the serrano peppers and then:
      • If you want hot salsa, leave the seeds in and slice them very, very thin.
      • If you want milder salsa, remove the seeds, then slice them very, very thin.
      • If you want totally gutless, sissy salsa, don't use so damned many peppers.
   3. Cut the tops off the jalapenos, cut them in half, and remove the seeds.

3. Rinse the basil and cilantro, and coarsely chop half of the cilantro (or tear the leaves off and, leaving the leaves whole, chop up the stems more finely).

4. In a blender, puree a couple of the tomatoes (maybe a third).

5. Then add and puree the following:
   1. the garlic,
   2. the basil,
   3. the jalapenos,
   4. the unchopped half of the cilantro, and
   5. the unchopped half of the onion.

6. Pour the above mix of pureed stuff into the cooled pot, set the heat to medium or low and warm through/simmer about 20 minutes.

7. As the mixture warms add 1 teaspoon of sugar and 1 teaspoon of salt to the warming mixture.

8. Puree the remaining tomatoes along with the lemon juice and vinegar.

9. After 20 minutes, turn the heat off from the simmering mixture and stir in the finely chopped serranos and onion (this gives them a little bath of heat).

10. After ten minutes or more, add: the mix of pureed tomatoes, lemon juice and vinegar, and the chopped cilantro.

11. Stir thoroughly. At this point, because the hot stuff and the cool stuff have been mixed, it's at a perfect eating temperature.