Roasted Tomato Salsa

I've never been a huge fan of salsa.  When I want a snack, I never crave chips and salsa like I've heard some other people do.  But, salsa is a great flavor addition to dishes (meatloaf topping, eggs/omlets, vegetable flavoring, maybe a meat marinade) and is pretty much nothing but vegetables.  In the past, I've found a lot of salsa's to be too wet for my taste - they're almost runny, so when I ran across a roasted tomato salsa, I thought it would be perfect for my tastes.  The roasting would remove some of the water from the tomatoes and concentrate the flavor a bit. 

You can roast your tomatoes under a broiler if you want, but I have bad luck with the broiler - I always burn things - so I just roast them in a high oven. 

Ingredients:  

• 6 roma tomatoes
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1/2 an onion, chopped in a small dice
• 2 jalapenos, minced
• 1/4 c. chopped cilantro
• 1/2 t. salt
• uice of 1/2 a lime
• drizzle of olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

Preheat your oven to 450. 

Slice 3 of your tomatoes thinly and lay them out in a single layer on a sheet pan, covered with parchment paper.  Drizzle the tops with a bit of olive oil and sprinkle with a bit of salt and pepper.  Put the tomatoes in the hot oven and let them roast until the skins appear shrivled and the tomatoes look sort of dry.  As I mentioned, they will burn, but we don't want burned tomatoes - just roasted - so keep an eye on them.

Grab a piece of foil.  In the center of the foil, place half the onions, half the jalapeno, and one of the garlic cloves.  Drizzle over a bit of oil and a pinch of salt and pepper.  Grab up the edges of the sheet of foil and pinch them together to make a hobo pouch.  Plop that in the oven, on an empty shelf.  When you take the tomatoes out, take the onion mixutre out. 

In a bowl, dump in the remaining onions, jalapeno, and garlic clove.  Dump in the hot onion mixture that we roasted and give it a little toss with the uncooked ingredients so that the raw onions can kind of wilt just a bit.  Dice the remaining 3 tomatoes up in a sort of small dice and put them in the bowl.  When the roasted tomatoes have cooled so you can handle them, dice them up as well and toss them in.  Add the cilantro and lime juice to everything and give it all a nice toss.  Taste it and add the desired salt and pepper. 

Serve.  Eat.  Enjoy!