Drunken Chipotle-Peach Salsa with Salted-Lime Chips

 

 

The Hubbs works for a fantastic company that really value their employees and they do all sorts of fun and different activities. This week he emailed me saying that for Thirsty Thursday they were going to have Sangria and a salsa contest. I love me some booze for sure, but competition is the key to my heart! I responded to his email with a simple "In it, to win it!" and then immediately got started dreaming up what I would make.

 

To me, a great salsa is spicy, sweet, salty, acidic & chunky. That was my starting point for deciding where to go with this. I knew I didn't want to do a traditional salsa. I wanted to stand really far apart. My first thought was a blueberry salsa, which I could fit into all of my categories except for chunky. I just didn't think that the texture would be salsa-like. I make a pretty decent mango salsa, so I started gravitating in that direction and ended up with peach salsa and of course since it was for Thirsty Thursday, I felt I *had* to make a boozy salsa.

 

The end result was a fantastic sweet, smoky, spicy, tart, boozy, & most importantly WINNING salsa.

 

Yes, that's right.

 

We won!

 

And since I am *obsessed* with Chipotle's chips, I had to make my own baked version!

 

Drunken Chipotle-Peach Salsa

 6 medium peaches

1 small red onion, diced
1 jalepeno, seeded & finely diced
1 7oz can chipotle Peppers in Adobo Sauce*
3oz Tequila**
2 limes, Juiced
3 Tbs. honey
3 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1/2c. chopped cilantro
Salt

 -Peel & dice the peaches into a small dice.

(The best way to peel a peach is to bring a large pot of water to boil. With a sharp knife score an "X" into the bottom of the peach. Drop into the water, wait 2 minutes, then transfer the peach to a bowl of ice water. Once the peach is cooled, the skin will easily peel off.)

-In a large bowl, mix together the onion, jalepeno, chipotle, tequila, lime jice, honey, & garlic. Mix until the honey has dissolved.
-Gently add the peaches & cilantro into the chipotle mixture.
-Season with salt to taste

*Squeeze out the liquid from the peppers and just use the liquid if you want a less-spicy salsa. For more spice, puree the peppers and add them as well

 **I used 1.5oz Local Choice Lake Chelan Lime Tequila (silver) and 1.5oz of a Resposado Tequila. The silver has a strong flavor while the resposado has a more subtle, caramel-like flavor. The blend is great, but you could absolutely use just 1 tequila.

 

Salted-Lime Tortilla Chips

 

10 flour tortillas or 24 corn tortillas

(use whole wheat tortillas to make this truly clean eats!)

4 limes, juiced
3 tsp. salt
Oil
(olive oil or coconut oil are best)
Coarse sea salt, for sprinkling (optional)

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees

-Brush or Spray oil onto both sides of the tortilla
-Slice tortillas into wedges. If using flour, cut into 1/8ths if using corn, cut into 1/4ths.
-Mix salt into lime juice. Stir until dissolved.
-Dip each wedge into the salted-lime juice and place onto baking sheet. Do not crowd the pan.
-Sprinkle coarse sea salt over the top of each chip, if using.
-Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 14 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through, until the chips are golden brown.