Monthly Archives: September 2007

Here are the fresh Salsa recipes

Salsa

2 large tomatoes, seeded (don’t have to) and diced
½ small sweet onion, like Texas sweet or red, finely chopped
1 to 3 jalapenos finely chopped
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped
1 large garlic clove finely chopped
2 tablespoons fresh squeezed lime juice
1 teaspoon olive oil
¾ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon black pepper
Combine all the ingredients and chill for 2 hours before serving with chips.

Salsa Fresca

1 ½ pounds tomatoes, seeded and cut into small dice

1 small onion, finely chopped
2 jalapeño chiles, seeded and finely chopped
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
¾ teaspoon salt

Salsa Recipes

The garden has been bountiful this year. With 4 plum tomato plants, 4 Early Girl, 4 Bonny Best and 1 Rutgers plant I’m swimming in tomatoes. Also with 12 sweet pepper plants, 8 jalapeno plants, 4 salsa pepper plants and about 5 dozen onions, I’ve decided to spice things up a bit when it comes to canning and preserving. I’ve already replenished my canned tomato store plus a lot more, so I’ve decided to can some salsa as well to use up the abundance of peppers. (Note: this is the 1st year that I’ve really reaped excellent large sweet peppers). Here are a couple of recipes I used that produced EXCELLENT canned salsa (i.e. not the fresh, use up immediately kind which I also have recipes for).

Mild Salsa for Canning [ canned ]

3 quarts tomatoes, peeled and chopped
3 large bell peppers, chopped
3 jalapeno peppers, chopped
4 medium onions, chopped
1 large bulb, chopped and minced
1 cup white vinegar
1 teaspoon whole oregano
3 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper (for hot), reduce the amount to make milder

Blend first three ingredients. Simmer until reduced to 2 quarts. Stir in remaining ingredients. Put 1 teaspoon vinegar in bottom of each jar. Fill with salsa and process 30 minutes in a water bath.

HOT Salsa for Canning [ canned ]

Servings: 4 to 5 pints

8 cups peeled, cored, chopped fresh tomatoes
1 to 2 cups seeded and chopped fresh mixed hot peppers; use more or less to taste. I used the following proportion to produce a nice burn hot salsa: 10% habenero, 10% thai chiles, 60% jalepeno and 20% salsa (or green) chile
2 cups chopped onion
8 cloves garlic, minced
½ cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 tablespoon salt
¾ cup cider vinegar
¼ cup fresh lime juice

Combine all ingredients in a large pot. Bring to a boil over medium high heat. Reduce heat and simmer about 10 minutes. Pour hot salsa into hot pint jars, leaving ¼ inch headspace. Seal jars with two piece caps. Process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes.

Fantasy Seasons Intermixing

The Fantasy Football league starts this Thursday. Last Wednesday we ran through our mini-draft to flesh out our keeper teams. I.e. dropped four players and drafted 4 new players to my existing 16 man roster. I didn’t have much to decide this year since 2 of my players (Keyshawn Johnson and Jake Plummer) retired and another player is a mere Tight End. The problem was the 4th player…which I needed to drop to get a draft pick in the first round, albeit the LAST pick of the 1st round since the franchise is coming off the 2nd consecutive year as champions. I reluctantly dropped my last year’s draft pick WR Greg Jennings who is probably going to be something special I’m sure now that I’ve dumped him.

It was worth the drop since I scooped up rookie-ish QB Matt Schaub for HOU, an up-and-coming franchise. All the RBs and stud WRs were picked up early as usual. Now I’m QB complete hopefully for the next 10 yrs. I finished my draft with a starter in Wes Welker (4th year and playing in NE) and a flyer rookie Terrell Owens type WR in Dwayne Jarrett (on another offensive upstart in CAR). I screwed up my last pick when I tried to find somebody, anybody to hold onto as a keeper RB for down the road. I jumped at the guy sharing loads with Ronnie Brown (Jesse Chatman) but quickly realized he doesn’t fit my strategy and dumped him onto the waiver wire and replaced with a rookie RB out of Denver in Selvin Young. Perhaps the next Terrell Davis? We’ll see, but definitely more upside than Chapman considering I don’t need to use him this year.

Clashing with my focus on the upcoming football year, the baseball pool is winding down. When I mean winding down I mean coming to a tumultous nail-chewing finale. For the past few weeks I’ve been wavering on whether I should throw the towel in and shut down activity or make the blockbuster trade and make a run for 4th, 3rd or possibly 2nd. Last week about the same time as the football draft, I crafted up a huge trade that I thought would give me the best chance to finish in the money. The downside is I mortgaged my future. I traded away the keeper stud of the year in Fausto Carmona. Owning him for cheap next year would certainly have given me a good headstart. I was agonizing over this decision. The downfall to the trade is that I still am not a lock for the $$ AND I now have lost my prime keeper.

As of today the 14 player trade has helped me. I sit in 4th by 4 points and off of 3rd by 3. I can achieve 4 pts in offense almost with certainty but will likely lose 2-4 pts in pitching. This puts me in a spot that is ‘likely’ to finish 4th and ‘possibly’ get third. But there are elements in play that can quite effectively put me out of the money.

The long and short of it is Carmona is no guarantee next year. I also have Billy Butler as a solid keeper so why not make a go at it when, after all, this is the point of an auction pool? One keeper allowed per year is not significant enough to sway the huge benefit I received in the trade. Now, if we had many more keepers the decision would have been much different.

Golf Season ’07

This has been a fairly good season for me this time around. I’ve pulled off a lot of mid-70’s rounds that has lowered my handicap to 5. Thanks to the local tech league I’ve been able to manage to get out about once a week albeit mainly at the Conestoga CC. I’ve posted good scores there but have no chance of beating the sandbaggers. With handicaps in place, if I shoot even par for the round I’ll come in with a net of -5. People have been coming in with -8 and up to -12 thanks to their ‘robust’ handicaps in the mid-teens.

Last Monday I had the full spectrum round. After 5 holes I was 10 over par. Normally I pack it in with a start that poor. This time around I pushed myself to finish well. I attributed 6 of the strokes to 2 very poor shots I made that put me into places from which I tried to make foolish recovery attempts. Otherwise I was playing fairly well around the greens.

I ended up shooting even for the remainder of the round finishing with a respectable 80 but nowhere near contention for the week.

On the baseball front: This weekend is the season ending tournament for the ball league. During regular season we whipped off 15 consecutive wins including 2 wins against the Flyers and one against the Farm Team. In total we finished 18-3 with the 3 losses coming in the 1st 6 games of the season.

This is DEFINITELY, ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY the LAST season I am going to play competitive ball. The will is gone and due to lack of play the frustration has set in at the plate. The finale is going to be somewhat bittersweet. Knowing it’s the last time yet not overly enthusiastic about playing.