Cheap Eats

The 99 Cents Only store (not to be confused with Dollar Tree) is a great place to pick up gourmet-style items. (The trick is to always check the expiration dates since sometimes they are quite near; though most of the time we find the items we want with at least a year left on the shelf life.) So today we spent some time meandering the canned and packaged food sections and came home with a myriad of goodies including baby corn (2 for .99), marinated mushrooms (shitake, oyster, and button varieties), fruit pie filling in three flavors (cherry, blackberry, and strawberry-raspberry), fire roasted golden bell peppers, pickled cherry tomatoes (never tried these before), chopped garlic, black sesame seeds, pineapple vinegar (had this before and it’s quite good), white soy sauce, bread sticks (the good ones imported from Italy), liquid smoke, and Jeff’s favorite tea biscuits. Whew! We started out with a little basket, but it rapidly became too heavy and we had to send the boy for a cart. (I’ll admit that on the way in Jeff said we’d need a cart, but I assured him I could make-do with a basket. Sometimes he knows me better than I know myself.) Of course, once we had the cart, there was not real limit to what I could pick up, so we moved to the fresh foods as well.

On the bakery aisle we found a bread round that smelled like Hawaiian sweet bread with a healthy dose of cinnamon. (We’ll be opening that for breakfast tomorrow!) The fresh food aisle also had plenty to offer with large bell peppers priced at 3 for .99, beautiful asparagus bundles that looked much younger and more tender than the woody stalks available in the grocery, personal-sized watermelons, large bags of assorted grapes, and packages of huge beefsteak tomatoes. I’ve never seen produce this good at The 99 Cents Only store, so I was sorely tempted to buy quite a bit. However, my son and I are leaving town in a couple of days and I fear much of it would go to waste in our absence. Hopefully, the good looking veggies will still be there when we return.

After looking at the veggies, though, I knew I had to make something fresh when we came home. Since it was nearly family t.v. time, I opted for fresh fruit salsa modeled after Jeff’s favorite kind – Santa Barbara brand mango-peach (available in the refrigerated section of our grocery). My approximation came so close I’m not sure we’ll buy it as long as the garden is producing plenty of tomatoes! Here’s the recipe:

4 cups diced fresh tomatoes
1 large peach, peeled and diced
1 mango, peeled and diced
½ a large onion, finely diced
1 small can chopped green chilies
2 tablespoons chopped chives
1 heaping tablespoon of pre-chopped garlic
1 scant tablespoon of sugar
¾ to 1 teaspoon (adjust to taste) freshly ground sea salt
Chipotle pepper sauce to taste (I added enough to give the salsa a smoldering after burn, which is about the heat level of the kind Jeff likes.)

Mix everything together in a large bowl, and don’t forget to squeeze the juice out of any fruit left around the mango pit. (Be careful, though; it’s slick! Mine popped out of my fist, arcing across the counter and catapulting to the floor. It was quite a sight.) Be sure to stir it around a little bit too, so some of the juices release from the tomatoes and fruits creating a saucier salsa. Enjoy!