Happy Cinco de Mayo!

In honor of the 5th of May, I have decided to pay homage to one of my culinary idols, Rick Bayless. For those of you who don't know of Mr. Bayless, I feel for you. Hopefully, this post will inspire you to look into him. Many will recognize the name from such shows as Top Chef Masters or Mexico: One Dish at a Time. One of Rick's stated passions is to show that Mexican cuisine can use the finest ingredients and be found in the finest of restaurants.

As you will undoubtedly see in future posts, Rick's passion for food and life is an inspiration to me. To date, I only have one of Rick's cookbooks -- Mexican Everyday. In it you can find recipes for making corn tortillas, moles, chipotle meatballs, chipotle shrimp (and countless other delicious creations). If you like Mexican cuisine, I would highly recommend checking it out.

One recipe I use often from Rick's book is his traditional salsa. Generally, I prefer a fresh tomato salsa rather than a chargrilled tomato/pepper salsa. This salsa is pretty straight forward: tomatoes, green onions (which I did not have, so I used white onion instead), serrano pepper, cilantro, garlic, and salt (or garlic salt for a little more of a garlic flavor).

Combine the garlic and pepper in a food processor and then add the cilantro and lime. Follow this by adding the tomatoes (at this point I would use the pulse function rather than just let the food processor run). Combine the ingredients until they reach your desired consistency (I prefer leaving it a bit chunky.

If you want a really thick salsa, you can squeeze the tomatoes to extract the inner juices prior to adding them to the food processor.

It is definitely as delicious as it looks! Try it out -- Happy Cinco de Mayo!