Homemade Salsa ALA Pioneer Woman

My new director at work put me in charge of a team potluck for Valentine's Day, he wanted a Mexican Theme. Well he really didn't chose me to do it, rather he asked someone else and she immediately pointed at me and said "Kristin will do it". Thanks KD. I guess I really shouldn't complain. I've worked there for 6 years now and never had to organize a potluck; whereas at my last job I was the "potluck guru" and was organizing one almost every significant holiday...you know like President's Day. Normally the Administrative Assistants do the organizing but now that we've had so many layoffs each admin has to support more than one director so they just don't have the time, or patience I've learned.

To go with the Mexican theme I decided to make PW's "homemade" salsa. Homemade in quotes because how homemade can you get with canned tomatoes and rotel? To be fair she calls it "retaurant style salsa" not homemade. Here's my picture of the ingredients (minus the spices).

You can get the full recipe here: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/01/restaurant-style-salsa/

I doubled mine because there are 30 people coming to this potluck and I didn't want to run out. Not that there aren't going to be 4 things of queso (I swear no one was reading my email of who was already signed up to bring what). I also did not use the Jalapeno. I was somewhat timid about cutting one and James ran off to the gym while I was doing this (he's the designated chef around here) so instead I used a can of Rotel w/Habanero's. Its not lacking in the spicy-ness.

Here's the finished product:

There are some benefits to making your own salsa. Cost is not one of them. I spent $10 on ingredients for a double batch, about the same price I would have paid for either a giant bottle of salsa at Costco or a couple of Jars at the grocery store. However, I'm super picky about my salsa. This is how I like it; runny! This is more of the consistency of a restaurant salsa than the super chunky stuff you get in the bottles. Also I can control the spicy-ness, or how much onion is in it *yuck*. Overall I like the taste. I think its missing a little something, maybe I should have put more cilantro? or Lime? Or sugar/salt? I just don't know. But I will probably keep making this and tinkering with it, until I get it just right.

Next up: Olive Oil Cakes with Lemon and Thyme. Sounds yummy.