salsa for galen

"who is galen?" you may ask. and the short answer is a guy i work with. a slightly longer version is that he's a husband, father, photographer, and kick-butt gardener, who even composts himself so that everything that comes out of his garden is completely natural. you can follow his exploits here, though they are mostly over for the year be sure to check back next spring to follow his plantings and adventures in the garden.

anyway, one day i came into the office to this:


he'd brought in several of his beautiful cherry tomatoes for me. they were the most perfect shade of red, and were sweet and juicy. seriously, i don't even eat raw tomatoes and i savored one of these. i knew that i had to write a recipe for them, but i wanted to make sure that it did them justice. i think this does...

ingredients:
a handful of amazing cherry tomatoes from a friends garden or a large package of cherry tomatoes
2 large shallots, thinly sliced
7 cloves of garlic confit, method to make this can be found here
heaping tablespoon of pickled jalapenos, finely minced
1/2 a teaspoon of sugar
splash of balsamic vinegar
splash of olive oil (feel free to use the garlic infused oil from the garlic confit)
sal gris
handful of cilantro leaves, chopped
juice of 1/2 a lemon

directions:
preheat the oven to 400.

quarter the cherry tomatoes and then mix them, the shallots, the garlic confit, the jalapenos, the sugar, the vinegar, the salt, and the oil together and place into a small casserole and pop into the oven. let this roast for about 15 minutes to let the flavors combine. remove from the oven and squeeze in the lemon juice and stir in the cilantro. add more salt to taste. serve warm.

notes:
this is great warm or cold. the heat here allows all of the flavors to mesh together, and the balsamic adds an unexpected sweetness to play against the spiciness of the jalapenos. this is now a hit around our house, whenever it comes time to make a snack the first thing the husband says is "how about that salsa?"