I was walking along the supermarket aisle one day when  I stumbled upon these bottled chunky Mexican salsas from Old El Paso. I love salsa, and even more so, chunky tomato salsa. There’s just something about the feel of those chunky bits of tomato, onions and chili on your tongue that is sooo satisfying. Couple that with the crunch of stone-milled nacho chips and aaah…culinary bliss!

The only thing stopping me from reaching out for that bottle was…the price! RM16.99 for a bottle salsa is highway robbery – no two ways about it!

So, I decided to make my own chunky salsa.

You know what I discovered? It’s easy as pie…and it certainly doesn’t cost me RM16.99 (OMG, I still gasp at the price!)

So here’s how I make chunky salsa – my way. And I think it tastes better than the bottled version (if I may say so myself…ahem!  )

Are you ready? Brace yourself for it:

MY SUPER EASY STEP-BY-STEP IDIOT-PROOF CHUNKY SALSA RECIPE…FREE!

The raw ingredients - cubed

 First, you’ll need the INGREDIENTS: 1 onion, 1 medium-sized capsicum, 2 large fresh tomatoes, cubed.

You’ll also need:  3 whole canned tomatoes – mashed

and

1 stalk of cilantro or to taste or you can leave this out all together if you don’t like the taste of it – finely chopped

Then, for the killer ingredient…great if you like a little pain and most of us Malaysians do

Canned or bottled JALAPENO PEPPER, cubed!

This is how a canned/bottled jalapeno pepper looks like. Get them at upmarket supermarkets like Jaya or Village Grocer and Cold Storage

 Then, lime juice, salt and black pepper to taste – and if you like, just a little sugar although, I leave it out together

 Mix all ingredients together in a microwave-safe bowl, except the salt, pepper and lime juice — these you add only at the end after everything is cooked as the canned tomatoes can be quite salty.

Ooh, aren’t they pretty together?

  Oh, oh…and my super secret ingredient: Taco Seasoning Mix (oops, not so super secret anymore) — any brand…This one was the cheapest!

My secret ingredient...

Bung the whole thing into the microwave oven. Set it on high for 10 minutes. Once the timer dings, give the mixture a good stir and put it back into the microwave for another 10 minutes or so. You’ll know it’s done when everything’s really soft and mushy. You’ll get a close up later on and you’ll know what I mean…Another indicator: the onions and capsicum can’t be cruchy. They must be SOFT. Once it’s done, take it out of the microwave, season, leave it to cool and serve with nacho chips, yum!

Serve salsa with nacho chips...also great as a topping for grilled fish!

A little story: These were so easy to make, I decided to serve them at parties. They’re colourful and really festive – great party food! When I serve this every year, my good friend Gwyn almost always finishes the entire tub of salsa …at one go! So when I made this batch, it simply had to go to Gwyn! I could think of no one else who’d appreciate this better.

Now mind you, she had this after a HEAVY Korean Bar-B-Q dinner and…this is how my salsa tub looked like three-quarter of the way through…with just a little help from my other good friend Karen .

Gwyn's salsa and chips - three-quarter of the way through...

After the nacho chips were eaten up, Gwyn whipped out a spoon and wolfed down the remainder of the salsa leaving the tub almost sparkling clean! Gwyn had done it again! You go, girl!

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Vanilla, white chocolate & cranberry muffins

Inspiration struck one dreary, rainy night.  I was stressed at work…had a mountain-load of work the size of the Pyramids of Egypt; was stretched, stretched, s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d from demands made by myriad parties — clients, colleagues, friends, family, myself…aargh! (Can you feel my pain? I can feel my own pain as I write this)…was spending so much time at work, Meghan my youngest, had taken to calling me ‘Bad Mummy’. So…I baked. Yes, you heard right…baked.

It was the fastest way I could think of to weasel my way back into my kids’ hearts. So tired though I was, I finally got around to baking at 11pm. In an hour flat, I’d moved from sifting flour to seeing my little ‘babies ‘ (the muffins, not my kids) rising prettily in the hot oven and smelling irresistibly good.  The kids loved them, wolfed them down and licked the crumbs and I was back in their good books. Not quite end of story.

My next challenge…what to do with the leftovers? I couldn’t bear to  throw them out, so guess what I did?

Sesame Sweet - Elmo & Cookie Monster Muffins!

I turned them into Elmo and Cookie Monster! Why? Because they are easy to do…Mentos for eyes, chocolate chips for the irises, orange gummy sweets for Elmo’s nose and golden chocolate coins cut into halves for both Cookie’s and Elmo’s mouths. Easy or not? It’s so rewarding especially when you are strapped for time yet want things to look good! What an easy cheat! Oh, my daughter Ashley who’s peering over my shoulder as I write this said I missed out on the icing. I used the same nozzle that the cake decoration aficionados use to get icing to look like grass. I think the people at the baking supply shop will be able to help you out if you’re keen. Or email me and I’ll look up my nozzle number.

Did you notice Elmo sweating? This will teach me never to photograph anything with icing straight out of the fridge

Hey, Cookie!

Oh lookee, Cookie’s sweating too! They’re a pair. I couldn’t have an individual shot of Elmo without having one of Cookie too. One of them might get jealous!

Anyways, here’s my super easy muffin recipe for all of you to enjoy! To give credit where it’s due, this recipe was adjusted from Diana Bonaparte’s Blackberry and White Chocolate Dot recipe (from her Mad About Muffins recipe book).

Vanilla, White Chocolate & Cranberry Muffins

Ingredients:

360g plain flour

1tbsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

125g sugar

100g butter

200g milk

2 eggs

1 tbsp vanilla essence

200g cranberries

200g white chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celcius. Line your muffin tin with paper liners.

2. Sift the dry ingredients into a large bowl and stir well.

3. You can melt the butter in a microwave or heat over low fire in a small saucepan. In a medium-sized bowl, beat together the milk, eggs and vanilla with a fork.

4. Add the egg mixture and melted butter to the dry ingredients and fold together with a large metal spoon until just combined.

5. Gently fold the cranberries and white chocolate chips in to the mixture with a spoon or spatula. The batter is done when it looks like a mixture and does not have dry lumps of flour in it. However, you’ll also have to make sure not to overwork the mixture so it becomes tough.  Confusing, I know…just try not fiddle with it for anything more than 3 minutes.

6. Spoon the batter into the muffin liners and bake for 25 – 35 minutes. The recipe book said 20 – 22 minutes but mine took a little longer.  Just keep an eye on it after 15 minutes.

7. Once done, transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Voila, piping hot muffins bursting with juicy cranberries and oozing with white chocolate!

Things to note: Here are the adjustments I made to the original recipe – I reduced the sugar from 170g to 125g as the white chocolate chips added in are sweeter than the semi-sweet variety. The cranberries are sweet too. For me, even with the sugar reduction, it was still a little sweet although my sugar tolerance tends to be quite low. My kids enjoyed the sweetness though.  I increased the vanilla essence from the original 1 tsp to 1 tbsp. For those who don’t like the taste of vanilla, this can be reduced. For an even sweeter option, top each muffin with coarse sugar  before baking, this will make for a delicious, crunchy top experience. You might want to reduce the sugar content a little more though. As the butter content is low, these don’t keep well and are best eaten within the day.

My girls...can you see the happiness on their faces?

Was all that trouble worth it? The looks on my girls’ faces say it all. Oh, and I haven’t been called ‘Bad Mummy’ in a while… (fingers crossed   )

Tags: baking, butter, cakes, Cookie Monster, cranberries, cupcakes, desserts, eggs, Elmo, flour, fun, muffins, Sesame Street, sugar

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