Fructose Friendly Fresh Salsa

Can you guess what I’m making?

Homemade Salsa, of course!

Ever since receiving the Mayo Clinic Fructose Malabsorption diet, I’ve been expanding Mr. Charm’s diet.  Tomato sauces are out, but fresh tomatos are back IN.  Woot!

That got me thinking about snack foods: Mr. Charm LOVES chips with salsa (takes after his parents!).  But jarred salsa from the grocery store is just full of junk…could I possibly make a salsa that would be fructose friendly?

Every recipe I found called for garlic and onion, and after our short experimentation with food journals we’ve already learned that garlic is ‘iffy’ for Mr. Charm.  It doesn’t wig him out completely, but it does affect his poo…so probably not a good idea to add too much more  fructose into his diet if we’re giving him garlic.

Onion is on the “maybe” list for Mayo, too, so I figured if the salsa could ‘live’ without garlic and onion, I could try OTHER fructose foods on Mr. Charm without complicating things by the garlic and onion.

Like Coconut.

I’m SO  ready to trial coconut on him…talk about making my life in the kitchen easier (if he passes)!!

So…back to the salsa.

Get out two pans and fill them with water.  Plop one on the stove and set it to boil. Put a whole bunch of ice in the other pan.  Set it aside.

While your water is heating up, grab 4 fresh tomatos and slice an X in the bottom of the skins.  We used Romas, but whatever you’ve got will work.

Take a jalapeno pepper and de-seed and de-vein it.  You don’t need to chop it up at this point.

Squeeze the juice from half of one lime.  Or use the pre-packaged stuff, if that’s safe for you!  About 1 TBS is what you’re shooting for.

Grab some cilantro and pull off a bunch of leaves.  (Don’t you love how specific I am?)  Really, just pull off as many as you think you’ll want in your salsa…I probably had 2-3 TBS.

Once the water has boiled, drop your tomatos in the water.  Well, place  them in the water – we don’t want you to get burned!

Give them about 1-2 minutes, then remove them from the boiling water and drop them into the ice water bath.  Let them cool.

When you pick them up from the ice water bath, the skin just slips right off!  So easy!

Then just cut off the stem part, cut the tomatos in half and de-seed them.  I tried to squeeze out as much liquid as I could; I don’t like a really runny salsa.

Now, the fun part: put it all in your food processor.  Sprinkle on some salt and pepper (this is ‘to taste’).  Let ‘er rip!  I used my Starfrit Manual food processor, but any kind would do.

And what you end up with is delicious, homemade, fructose friendly, yummy good Salsa!  Of course, if fructose isn’t a problem for you, you could add in some onion and garlic to your salsa.  This is a pretty forgiving recipe, after all…just mix stuff together until it looks and tastes right to you!

The Geek said it tasted great – just as good as regular salsa with onion and garlic.

Mr. Charm was thrilled to have salsa again.

Mama was happy.

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FRUCTOSE FRIENDLY FRESH SALSA

– 4 tomatos (we used Roma)
– 1 lime
– 1 jalapeno
– cilantro
– salt
– pepper

1. Boil water in one pan, make an ice water bath with another.
2. Cut the jalapeno in half, cut off the stem, and de-seed it.
3. Cut the lime in half and juice half the lime.  About 1 TBS of juice is good.
4. Tear off about 2-3 TBS of cilantro leaves.
5. Put the tomatos in the boiling water for 1-2 minutes; remove from water and place immediately in the ice water bath.
6. Let tomatos cool, then remove the skins.
7. Cut the stem off the tomatos, de-seed and squeeze out excess liquid.
8. Put all ingredients in your food processor, add salt and pepper to taste, and process!
9. Enjoy your delicious, better than store-bought, Salsa!

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Have you made your own salsa?  Any additions you like to your salsa?

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This post was shared with Allergy Free Wednesdays, Whole Foods Wednesdays, and Real Food Wednesdays.