Quick and Easy Homemade Salsa

Divorce mediation was Thursday. Two hours in a conference room at the mediator's office — beige walls, water in paper cups, a woman named Janet who guided us through the paperwork with the practiced neutrality of someone who has sat between a thousand failing marriages and learned not to take sides.

Scott and I sat across from each other. We were polite. We were organized. We agreed on everything in ninety minutes: I get the house, the kids, the car. He gets his truck and his fire gear. Custody is one weekend a month for Scott, alternating holidays. Child support is $600 a month, which is what he can afford and which is not enough but is better than nothing. We will be divorced by January.

Janet said, "This is one of the smoothest mediations I've done in twenty years." She meant it as a compliment. I heard it as confirmation that our marriage was so thoroughly dead that even its funeral was efficient. There was nothing left to fight about because there was nothing left. Two people who once loved each other enough to make two children sat in a beige conference room and divided a life in ninety minutes and shook hands at the end. Shook hands. Like a business deal. Like the seven years and two children and one cancer diagnosis were a transaction that could be closed with a handshake.

I drove home and sat in the driveway for ten minutes. I wasn't crying. I wasn't angry. I was just — sitting. Letting the finality of it settle. The paperwork will be filed. The judge will sign. The marriage will end. And I will be Heather Dawson again, not Heather Wilder, not Scott's wife, not anything that belongs to someone else. Just Dawson. Just Heather. Just mine.

My birthday is next week. Thirty-four. Last year I turned thirty-three and I had cancer and my mother made me pot roast and wrote me a note that I still read every morning. This year I will turn thirty-four and I am cancer-free and almost divorced and I have two children in school and a garden full of tomatoes and a job I love and a life that is messy and hard and entirely my own. Thirty-four is going to be better than thirty-three. The bar is low. The bar is underground. But I'm clearing it.

I roasted the last of the garden tomatoes this week — halved, drizzled with olive oil, salt, garlic, slow-roasted at 300 degrees for two hours until they're concentrated and caramelized and almost sweet. I froze them in jars for winter, the way Mom freezes things, the way Grandma Ruth froze things, the way women in this family have always preserved the summer against the winter, because that is what you do: you take what the good season gives you and you save it for the hard season, and you eat it in January and remember that the sun was warm once and will be warm again.

This is the recipe I made with those last tomatoes — or a version of it. Some years I freeze them plain, the way I described, just oil and salt and garlic. But when there’s enough, I pull out the blender and make salsa, because salsa keeps, and salsa goes on everything, and opening a jar of it in January is like opening a little window back to August when the garden was full and the sun was warm and the season still had everything left to give. Thirty-four is coming. I’m putting up provisions.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 2 hrs | Total Time: 2 hrs 15 min | Servings: 8 (about 3 cups)

Ingredients

2 lbs Roma or garden tomatoes, halved
1 small white onion, quartered
4 cloves garlic, unpeeled
1–2 jalapeños, halved and seeded (leave seeds for more heat)
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1/2 teaspoon sugar (optional, to balance acidity)

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Heat oven to 300°F. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment or foil.
Arrange vegetables. Place tomato halves cut-side up on the baking sheet along with the onion quarters, unpeeled garlic cloves, and jalapeño halves. Drizzle everything with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and sprinkle with 1 teaspoon salt.
Roast low and slow. Roast at 300°F for 1 hour 45 minutes to 2 hours, until the tomatoes are collapsed, caramelized at the edges, and deeply concentrated. The onion should be soft and slightly charred. Remove from oven and let cool for 15 minutes.
Peel the garlic. Squeeze the roasted garlic cloves out of their skins directly onto the pan. Discard the skins.
Blend. Transfer all roasted vegetables and any accumulated juices to a blender or food processor. Add cumin, cilantro, lime juice, and the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil. Pulse 8–10 times for a chunky salsa, or blend 20–30 seconds for a smoother consistency. Taste and adjust salt and sugar as needed.
Cool and store. Let salsa cool completely before transferring to jars or airtight containers. Refrigerate for up to 10 days, or freeze in freezer-safe jars for up to 3 months. Leave 1/2-inch headspace if freezing.

Nutrition (per serving)

Quick and Easy Homemade Salsa — Putting Up the Last of the Garden