Grilled Peach Salsa

When Mary Kate and I began to plan the cookout we held several weeks ago (grilling, friends and lots o’ posts for the blog, what could be better?), we started with thinking about what ingredients were in season and could be grilled.  We wanted to do a dessert, but I couldn’t figure out anything with my restrictions by the time we were solidifying the menu. I had seen a recipe for peach salsa for canning, but I wondered what it would be like grilled instead, because it would bring out the sweetness of the peaches and combine it with some lovely caramelized, smokey flavors. So we tried it. It’s good. And for those of you that can’t have chips like me (the corn chips are only to make the picture pretty in my case, although Mary Kate can eat them), this salsa is really good on pork chops as a sauce. You could also use it as a marinade or a glaze on pork or chicken, depending on how finely you chop the ingredients or just put it in the blender for a peach barbecue sauce. This is a low heat salsa, so don’t be afraid because I’m posting it. For the chili heads, don’t worry, I’ve got a hot sauce coming up in few weeks that blows my head off, and will have appropriate warnings.

Grilled Peach Salsa

• 1 pound of peaches, grilled
• 1 small red red onion, grilled
• 1/2 of a orange bell pepper, grilled (If you don’t know what to do with the half of orange bell pepper you’ll have left over, de-stem and de-seed it, put it in a freezer zip top bag and put it in your freezer. Peppers need no additional prep to freeze. Use it the next time you make a soup, stew, chili or marinara sauce.)
• 2 jalapeno peppers, grilled
• 1/2 of a bulb of garlic, with top cut off and with most of the outer layer peels removed (Grill the whole bulb and put the remainder in the fridge to use for mashed potatoes or something else where roasted garlic would be awesome)
• 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil or other safe-for-you oil
• 1/4 cup of white wine vinegar
• 2 Tablespoons brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon of ground cumin
• 1/8 teaspoon of ground cayenne pepper

 **Please keep in mind as you look at the pictures that I was cooking a whole lot of other things the day we were grilling, so the pictures do not reflect the correct amounts of the ingredients shown, or may show additional ingredients. Also, my original recipe made a holy ton of salsa, so we cut the ingredients in half for the purposes of this post.

De-stem and de-seed your peppers.

Place the peppers on the grill and grill until they get a bit tender and have a bit of char on them.

Take your garlic bulb, slice off the top so that the cloves are exposed a bit (see the picture and description in our previous Grilled Salsa recipe), and place it on some aluminum foil large enough to wrap the garlic in as shown in the picture above. Drizzle the olive oil over your garlic bulb, and wrap the aluminum foil around it and place it on the grill. Roast the garlic until the cloves are cooked and mushy.

Trim and peel your onion and then slice it in about half to one inches slices and place on the grill. Grill until you have a bit of char, and the onion is tender. (Ours were a bit more charred probably than strictly necessary, we were having issues with the grill, totally user error.)

Cut your peaches in half and remove the pit. On some of them I had to cut the peaches in quarters to get the pit out, but it’ll still work, it’s just halves are a little easier to manipulate on the grill.  Place the peaches on the grill and grill until they are a bit more tender and have some nice charring on the outside.

Once all your grilled ingredients are cooked, squeeze out the roasted garlic from the cloves, and put the garlic, peppers, onions, and peaches in a blender or food processor, and process until chopped to the level of chunkiness that you like. I used the manual food processor from Pampered Chef because I wouldn’t have to truck everything back inside or find an electric outlet (no affiliation, I just like it). You are likely going to have to process in batches.  Place all the chopped ingredients in a large bowl and add the white wine vinegar, brown sugar, cumin and cayenne pepper. Mix thoroughly.

Enjoy!