Lazy Salsa - The best damn salsa you'll ever eat!

Pizza is the greatest food that has ever graced the earth and if it were at all feasible I would probably eat it every single day for the rest of my life. My lovely wife would never allow me to do that of course so a fallback is needed...

Mexican food fits the bill.

Now I'm not talking about Taco Bell or some of the Tex-Mex trash that American's have come to associate with Mexican cuisine. I am referring to traditional, authentic Mexican cuisine complete with names and ingredients that many have never even heard of. Mole, tacos al pastor, chicharrón, tamales, cochinita pibil - notice I didn't mention chalupas or tacos with Dorito shells. Unfortunately, I am fairly lazy and unskilled as a chef so most of these traditional recipes lie beyond my reach; however, the great thing about Mexican food is that it can be both simple and delicious beyond belief all at the same time.

A rich and savory salsa made in bulk can last for days in the refrigerator and can bring a little Mexican flavor to any dish.

Eggs for breakfast? Add some high quality tortilla chips and salsa.

Tacos? Cook up your meat of choice with corn tortillas and add salsa.

I like to put salsa on everything, so I wanted to share my favorite salsa recipe which is my simple take on chef Rick Bayless's (look him up) lazy man salsa.

Lazy Salsa

Ingredients

To get started you will need the following ingredients:

• (4) Tomatoes, medium sized
• (2) Onions halved, I prefer purple for this recipe
• (1) Jalapeño, I use more
• (1) head of garlic
• Salt
• A grill, charcoal imparts the best flavor

Don't get caught up on quantities here, just try to have roughly two times as much tomato as you do onion. Also, don't worry too much about tomato type. Use what you can get as the grill is going to provide most of the flavor.

Pile all of your produce ingredients in a large bowl and head outside to your grill which you have fired up and ready to go.

Let's cook some salsa

Grilling doesn't get any easier than this. Essentially we will just be heating all of the ingredients until they are cooked through and have a nice charred exterior. Start with the onions as they will take the longest to cook...

As you flip the onions they will start to come apart at the layers. This is a good thing because it increases the amount of charring which means the salsa will have a bolder smokey flavor.

After 5 minutes or so add the rest of the produce ingredients to the grill, being sure to turn them every couple minutes to ensure an even char on all sides.

After about 20-25 minutes when everything is cooked through and decently charred, remove from the grill and return to the bowl to cool off a bit.

Putting it all together

After your ingredients have cooled to the point where you can handle them, set the onions aside and chop them into large chunks. In my personal opinion larger is better, just so long as they can fit on a chip.

We cooked an entire head of garlic to keep small cloves from falling through the grill grate, but will only be using 3 cloves for the salsa. The remaining grilled garlic cloves are delicious if you want to eat them instead of just tossing them in the trash.

Core the tomatoes if they have a thick meaty center and place them in your blender or food processor. Add the (3) garlic cloves, jalapeño, a large teaspoon of salt, and then blend to your desired consistency. I usually like it fairly liquidy leaving the onions to provide most of the chunkiness.

Pour the salsa into a bowl and mix in the onions. At this point the salsa is ready to go and is fantastic to eat, but it is even better if you allow it to sit overnight in the refrigerator to give the flavors time to meld together.

And that is Lazy Salsa! I promise you it will not disappoint.