On your back porch, grow one salsa tomato plant and one jalapeno plant. You'll be set with free salsa for months! Here is an easy salsa recipe.

Ingredients:
1 red jalapeno pepper
1 green jalapeno pepper
5 medium salsa tomatoes (about 2-3" each)
1/3 cup onion
1/4 tsp minced garlic
1/4 tsp cilantro
1/8 tsp ground cumin
dash lime juice
1 packet Splenda
salt and pepper to taste

Cut the jalapenos in half lengthwise and scoop out all the seeds. Be cautious with this part - make sure you use paper towels or other implements to get those out. Make sure you wash your hands thoroughly after dealing with the jalapeno peppers. Dice up the jalapeno shells and the tomatoes.

Now blend all in a food processor on a low setting - your aim is not to have a super smooth puree, but to have a nicely blended mixture that has some texture to it.

Your aim here is typically to have something that you can pick up with a nacho chip - something that holds together enough to stay on the chip, but not so chunky that you end up taking half of the salsa onto one chip while it all sticks together.

This ends up being what they tend to call "restaurant style" salsa - a smooth blend that works well with chips. If you want to have more of a tomato base, you can of course add a few more tomatoes into the mix and bulk it up. Also, if the initial blend is too mild for you, simply start adding in some of the jalapeno seeds. Those will add heat for you fairly quickly.

An issue for low carbers is to find chips that are tasty and healthy. You'll need to look around your local stores to find chips that are good to eat these chips with. I end up mail ordering my flax seed chips from Amazon, to get one that I enjoy. It's important to do the research that finds you the chips that work best for you and your meal plans.

Tomatoes and jalapenos are things that grow well in just about any window, on any back porch, in any corner with a green light. Get yourself a few pots, grow yourself a few plants, and enjoy the free fruits of a bit of watering!


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