{In the Kitchen}

When we got back from the Morro Bay fish market, I was feeling motivated to cook up a few items with some of my farmer’s market veggies I’d gotten that morning.

First up, I decided to make some homemade salsa from a recipe I’d seen on Tasty Kitchen earlier that week. Both Jeff and I have attempted homemade salsa many times before, but neither of us have ever been able to successfully combine both intense flavor and perfect texture all in one salsa. Plus, it was my kind of recipe–throw everything into the food processor, pulse a few times, and it’s done!

It was to die for!! The heat of the jalapenos coupled with the smokiness of the chipotles and fire roasted tomatoes then with the sweetness of the cherry tomatoes all combined to make the perfect salsa. We put it in a mason jar, so we could use it all week–we just have a little bit left, so I think I’ll need to make some more soon!

If you have 5 minutes and love salsa as much as I do, check out the recipe!

Next, I decided to make pesto with some lemon basil I had picked up at the farmer’s market that morning. I had some almonds in the fridge that needed to be used so although I had never made pesto with almonds before, I figured I’d give it a shot! First, I soaked the almonds to remove the skins then toasted them in a cast iron skillet on the store. Next, I threw them into the food processor along with the lemon basil, garlic, lemon juice, and olive oil.

At this point, I realized we were pretty much out of parmesan cheese so I decided to substitute feta instead. Unlike the salsa, mixing this concoction in the food processor did not have the desired results! The pesto came out grainy, almost with a hummus like texture, from using way too many almonds. It also could have benefited from the added flavor of the parmesan too. Definitely a kitchen experiment fail!

The flavor was actually that bad, so I put it in a container in the fridge to use as really-hard-to-spread pizza sauce for dinner the next night.

Finally, I decided to whip up some black bean burgers to have pre-made for dinner during the work week. Since I stopped eating meat (most of the time anyway!), it’s always nice to have some homemade veggie burgers in the freezer too, since store bought ones are always so expensive and never that great!

I followed the recipe from one of my favorite blogs–EatLiveRun–and wouldn’t you know, they came out perfect. Maybe I should keep sticking to recipes?! I’ll post the actual meal we made soon, but in the mean time, check out the recipe!

Do you ever use your weekends to make food for the week ahead?