Chipotle Salsa

$900? $900. $900! That's how much money it costs to ship approximately 15 paintings of various sizes ranging from the very large to very small in 3 days from Southern California to Washington D.C. But, before we packed up Ray's precious cargo for his impending solo show & kissed good bye to a little chunk of our savings, we had a bon voyage party for his work. A preview of sorts. Pitchers of margaritas were consumed leading to philosophical waxing about the nature of painting & Ray's paintings specifically. To keep this chatter afloat brain food was necessary & to me, brain food is chips & salsa. Not the peppermints my 5th grade teacher passed out under the guise of brain food. Think about it, if there's a bowl of chips & salsa at a table couldn't you just sit there talking & munching until the bottom of the bowl shines through? I know I could (& have). So along with our strong (so we were told) margaritas, I whipped up a batch of this spicy, fresh chipotle salsa. Armed with excessive chips, we plunked down in Ray's studio & munched until the bottom of the bowl showed up ... or at least peaked through.

Chipotle Salsa, makes about 2 cups

3 roma tomatoes, coarsely chopped

1/2 poblano peppers, coarsely chopped

1 - 1/2 (depending on how hot you like it) canned chipotle pepper*

6 - 8 stalks cilantro

3 - 4 cloves garlic

1/2 red onion

2 tbsp. tomato sauce

1 1/2 tsp. cumin**

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. pepper

pinch of oregano

Combine all ingredients in a food processor & pulse until desired texture. Serve with tortilla chips.

*Can be found in the Mexican/Ethnic section of most grocery stores or at Mexican markets

**My dad swears by freshly ground cumin seeds for this salsa. You can easily substitute pre-ground cumin, but he's right, that little extra work to grind up a small handful of cumin seeds is worth it. To grin them you can use a molcajete, mortar & pestle, or even a clean (very clean!) coffee grinder.