Chipotle Salsa (And a Breakfast Tostada to Boot)

It's tomato season! While my poor little tomato plants have been cruelly neglected, leading them to provide me with a total of 10 puny little grape tomatoes, thankfully my CSA farm employs much better tomato nurturers.

Besides putting tomatoes on all my salads and sandwiches, I've made a couple delicious homemade salsas this week. The first is a roasted poblano salsa (poblanos also from the CSA!) and the second is a fresh tomato chipotle number featured in this post. It's crazy easy and results in a spicy smoky salsa perfect for all your chip-eating needs. I made it in a food processor since I'm a big fan of the restaurant-style pureed salsa, but you could also hand-chop all the ingredients and mix for a chunkier version. Bonus: it went great on a breakfast tostada we made to kick off a gorgeous Saturday in Maryland.

Chipotle Salsa
3 medium tomatoes, quartered
1 garlic clove, peeled
1/2 a shallot (or a whole shallot if it's small), quartered
1 chipotle in adobo plus a tsp or two of the liquid depending on how spicy you want it
salt, to taste

Toss all ingredients in a food processor and turn on for a bit. Done-zo.

Crazy-delicious Breakfast Tostada
(serves 2)
For the hash (this was leftover from dinner the night before; the recipe below is halved already so it could be made just for breakfast):
2 yukon potatoes, peeled and diced
2 tbsp canola oil
1 tsp chipotle powder
salt and pepper to taste

For the tostada:
2 small flour tortillas (we only had ginormous ones so we just used 1 cut it in half)
1 cup shredded pepper jack cheese
2/3 cup black beans, rinsed
ze hash from above
2 eggs, cooked any style (I poached mine)
chipotle salsa from above, to taste

Boil a pot of water and cook the potatoes just until tender. Drain. Heat a skillet over high heat and add the canola oil. When shimmering add the potatoes and walk away from a few minutes to let them crisp up. Fry them good, turning to get all sides brown and crispy. Add the chipotle powder, salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.

Cook your eggs.

In the same skillet used to cook the potatoes, warm the tortillas one at a time (turn the heat down to medium-low so as not to burn them). Melt the cheese on each tortilla before removing from the heat.

To assemble, top each cheesy tortilla with potatoes, black beans, eggs and salsa. Voila!