Picture This: Salsa

No excuses, really, for why this picture of a salsa jar on my deck here. I was there, it was there, things happened. I guess the bigger question would be why it was outside with me in the first place. All right, fine, I'm sort of an oddball a total wackjob when it comes to making stuff and putting it in jars, I carry it places with me sometimes, thinking it somehow photogenic. Which it isn't, really.

I did have a picture of the salsa unjarred that was quite pretty, actually, dished up with chips and stuff, not all mushed behind glass which could just as easily look like regurge as much as not, but the camera died and I ate it before I had the chance for a do-over. Not the camera I ate, the salsa, I ate the salsa. Also that first one gone wild with chips was not modeled on the deck; that would plainly be wrong.

I wasn't kidding, though, what I said putting fresh made food in jars makes me want to take pictures. "Awesome" is a word I say a lot, and I am truly trying to stop that, but for now it is all I can think of, how this whole big-ass jar of deliciousness is not only tastier fresh and preservative-free than your store-boughts, it's, like, virtually cost-free, too. (I'm also trying hard to stop saying "like" like that, you know?)

This time of year, and it is still too early for the tomatoes in the grocery to be decent, I stick with canned tomatoes for it. No hatin' on the wonderfulness of Red Gold (←contest there) or anything, but I opted for the Always Save brand. A 49-cent can went into this one, and I had to buy the head of garlic, an onion and jalapeños, but what? Maybe less than a buck altogether, I am supposing. A couple of cloves of the garlic, couple of peppers and half an onion. Oh, and a lime, I squirted some juice from that into it, too. If I had put in cilantro, that might have put me over my buck budget, but I hate cilantro. Bleh.

The fantasticker thing about it, also, is that as cheap and better all around as it is made fresh, once I get my garden growing here (still giddy about that, by the way) I can save even the George that this took, plus it will be even fresher. I'm all for the cheap, free is even better, and there is nothing in here that I won't be growing myself. I'm also all in with organic and locally grown, and you sure can't get more local than stepping just outside. Yep, awesome.

For now even with this batch, though, notwithstanding some compromise toward the economical and ecological aspects, it's still a good sight better all around than the alternatives. I don't understand why, even for others less chintzy and less environmentally bent than myself, folks don't do this sort of thing anyway? Get a rope. It's just flat out better, plus it tastes more excellent knowing I made it. I don't even own a food processor, just a really big knife, that risk alone makes me appreciate it more. Plus it's prettier, for taking pictures and such.