My wonderful husband bought me a Blendtec! We are having so much fun making all kinds of things in it. Since making diet changes that include not eating gluten, I was wanting to make my own almond flour and other nut flours and butter. It was wearing out my food processor.
We have already (in less than a week) made countless smoothies, almond butter, peanut butter, soups and this delicious salsa. The Blendtec comes with some great little recipe books that we are plowing through. We did end up making a change to the recipe from Blendtec recipe, they used fresh vine-ripened tomatoes, but since we didn’t have any at the time, I used some canned whole tomatoes. Here’s the link to a lot of their great recipes, but the Salsa Asada one isn’t on their website. Lots of other good ones though!
Super simple to make, just added all the ingredients to the blender and pulse a few times until it was the consistency we wanted. You can pulse less if you like a chunkier salsa. I like mine to not have really any chunks at all. This salsa has a little different kick in it from some liquid smoke and some vinegar. It is otherwise pretty similar to the one we make most often, called Mildly Wild Salsa. Try this one if you like a little kick. Don’t tell those who try it what it is that is in it and see if they can guess what that smoky flavor is.
Salsa Asada, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!, adapted from Blendtec
2—14 oz. cans of whole tomatoes, drained
2 jalapenos, skins blackened over gas stove (for extra spiciness, don’t throw out the seeds and ribs, just cut off the tops)
1 small shallot (or 1/4 medium onion), peeled and chopped into 4 quarters
2 cloves garlic, peeled
about 1/3 cup fresh cilantro (or to taste)
1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt
1/2 teaspoon all natural liquid smoke
With a gas burner on medium heat, set two jalapenos over the rack and blacken each side. You can hold them over the flame with tongs as well, it is often necessary to move them around to get even blackening. Once they are blackened, put them in a bowl and cover it. In the bowl of a blender, add the drained canned tomatoes (there were about 4-5 whole tomatoes in each can). Add the shallot, garlic, cilantro, vinegar, salt and liquid smoke. Remove the skins from the jalapenos by rubbing them with a paper towel. (Don’t rinse away that grilled flavor! A little black skin left on them is okay.)
One all the ingredients are in the blender, pulse it in 1-2 second pulses until it is the desired consistency. Pulse less if you want chunky salsa, more if you want it smoother.
(This was a little spicy for me, but others in the family loved it. I would remove the ribs and seeds from one jalapeno next time and left them in the other.)
With the new Blendtec, it has the big jar, but we also got the smaller one that is used more for making nut butters. If you’re going to get a Blendtec, I would recommend getting the smaller jar (for an added price) as well (though you CAN still make nut butters in the bigger jar). Also not pictures, I made sunflower seed butter—within seconds! When I was doing these butters in my food processor, it was taking 10-15 minutes to get it to a smooth consistency and I think my food processor would have eventually died for the overworking. ;)
It would be overkill if we took pictures of all the smoothies we’ve been making and Kevin made a tortilla soup (all the raw veggies are just added to the blender, then you push the “soup” button and within seconds you have soup—it even heats it slightly. We liked it a little hotter, so we did heat it a little on the stove after that. Kevin liked the tortilla soup so much, he’s made it twice already (and this is coming from someone who claimed he didn’t like soup)!
(This is not a sponsored post and I was not paid to say this, I just love my new Blendtec!)
Thanks for the Blendtec, Kev! I wasn’t even begging for it, he just knew I wanted one and that it would get used. What a guy!
