A Little Something

Super Simple Salsa

For a refreshing afternoon summertime snack, try a bowl of fresh salsa with chips. It's an easy way to use up some of those garden tomatoes and peppers and cilantro from the herb bed. As always, I keep it simple:

 2 tomatoes, diced

1 green pepper, diced

1 small onion

3 tablespoons oil

3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

few dashes of salt

1 handful of fresh cilantro, chopped

hot peppers to taste, diced fine - optional (I usually don't include any so even the littles can enjoy this salsa.)

Mix all ingredients in a salad bowl. Serve with tortilla chips. Call the children for snack and watch it all disappear. Nice with lemonade or iced tea.

Cranberry Orange Gelatin Salad

I created this recipe some years ago as I wanted a cranberry gelatin that didn't rely on artificially flavored and colored jello. It has a nice natural spicy, fruity flavor.

Gelatin always calls to mind an area of Marital Discord from our newlywed days. I distressed my dear husband by making a fruited jello with Random Fruit. I just mixed some fruit into the bowl of jello and just let it set in all of its Disorganized Fruity Chaos. He gasped audibly upon seeing this disarray.

But my husband is a kind and patient man. He forgave this travesty and instructed me in proper Organized Fruit technique as made by his father before him, in which you pour a thin layer of jello, let it set, and then artfully arrange your layer of fruit. Add a bit more jello, let chill and repeat as many times as you like. Very Organized.

3 cups fresh Cranberries (1 bag)

1 cup water

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 can Mandarin oranges

Orange Juice

2 envelopes unflavored gelatin (Knox)

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon cloves

Mix the sugar and water together in a saucepan. Add cranberries and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for a few minutes until berries are puffy looking. Allow to cool. Meanwhile drain oranges, reserving the juice. Pour the juice into a measuring cup and add orange juice if needed to make one cup liquid. Follow the directions on the Knox box for sprinkling gelatin over the juice and letting it set a few minutes. Then combine gelatin mixture with berries and spice. If you don't need Organized Fruit you can jut mix it all together and chill. Otherwise pour your gelatin mixture into your serving bowl and neatly arrange the oranges on top in a pretty pattern. Chill thoroughly until set.