Fire-Roasted Vegetable Salsa

January fourteenth. Nine years. I made the funeral potatoes the way I have made them every year since I was thirty-three years old and burying a baby. Mason, sixteen, came in from the garage where he had been stripping wire for a side job and sat on the stool at the island and ate two helpings without saying anything. Noah, eleven, came in too, and sat next to him. Lily, fourteen, drifted by and put a hand on my shoulder for half a second before she kept walking. Brandon was at the table with a book, not reading it. Grace would have been nine. I do not let myself imagine the alternate life. I keep her in the facts.

I batch-prepped on Sunday afternoon and finished early because Brandon now operates the vacuum sealer, which is a development I am still adjusting to. The week was a winter week, the kind where the light through the kitchen window arrives at a particular angle and the freezer hums in a different register depending on the temperature in the garage. I made notes in my prep notebook on Sunday afternoon, the way I always do: meal name, ingredient list, cost per serving, prep time, freezer instructions. Twenty-eight bags. Two hours and eleven minutes. A little slow this week, by my standards, but Brandon was helping and the conversation was good, and I have learned, slowly and against my own grain, that the conversation is sometimes the point and the time is sometimes a courtesy I extend to my husband for being willing to chop onions on a Sunday afternoon.

The recipe of the week was classic beef chili, which I have made some specific number of times in my life and have refined to a system that I now hand to other people in printed form. The version I made this week fed eight, cost under fifteen dollars, and required twenty-six minutes of active prep, which is within my requirements and not a coincidence. Three of the bags I pulled out this week were dated nine months ago and they were perfect, because labeling is theology in my house. I have stopped explaining the freezer-meal philosophy to people who already follow my work, and I have stopped apologizing for it to people who do not. The philosophy is simple: tomorrow is coming whether you are ready or not. You can either be ready or not. I pick ready.

Brandon called me at lunch on Tuesday for no particular reason and I knew without him saying so that he was thinking about Grace. Twenty-some years in, I can hear the silences. We have been married a long time. The arithmetic of it is the arithmetic of my whole life. There were years we missed each other in the same room, and there are years we find each other in the silences, and this is one of the latter, and I am old enough now to know that the latter is the achievement and the former was the cost.

The accountant in me keeps a private ledger of how old Grace would be. I do not consult it. It is automatic. I do not write about her every week. I do not avoid her either. She is in the kitchen the way the kitchen is in the kitchen — woven into the structure, not announcing herself, present. The photograph above the stove is the only one of her smiling, and it has watched me batch-prep more freezer meals than I can count, and I have stopped feeling strange about the parasocial relationship I have with a four-month-old who has been gone for years. She is my daughter. The photograph is what I have. I look. I keep cooking.

I'm Michelle. The freezer is full. Talk to you next week.

The chili is the headliner, but the salsa is what I make first — it goes into the bags alongside the chili, and it goes on the table when the chili comes out, and it has been in my Sunday rotation long enough that Brandon chops the peppers now without being asked. Fire-roasted vegetable salsa is not a complicated recipe, but it is a precise one, and precision in a kitchen that runs on systems is its own kind of comfort. This week especially, I needed the ritual of it: the smell of the roasted tomatoes, the familiar sequence of steps, the notebook entry at the end that says it took fourteen minutes and cost under three dollars a batch. Some weeks the cooking is just the cooking. Some weeks it is the thing that keeps you moving.

Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 15 min | Total Time: 25 min | Servings: 8

Ingredients

6 roma tomatoes, halved
1 medium white onion, quartered
4 cloves garlic, unpeeled
2 jalapeño peppers, halved and seeded (or keep seeds for more heat)
1 red bell pepper, halved and seeded
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Instructions

Preheat the broiler. Set your oven broiler to high and position a rack about 6 inches from the heat source. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil.
Prep and oil the vegetables. Arrange the tomatoes, onion, jalapeños, red bell pepper, and unpeeled garlic cloves on the prepared baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and toss lightly to coat. Place tomatoes and peppers cut-side down.
Broil until charred. Broil for 12–15 minutes, turning once halfway through, until the skins are blistered and charred in spots. The tomatoes should be soft and the onion should have color on the edges. Watch closely — broilers vary.
Cool and peel. Remove from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes. Peel the garlic cloves and discard the skins. Peel and discard the charred skins from the peppers if desired (leaving some skin adds depth).
Blend to your texture. Transfer all roasted vegetables and any accumulated juices to a blender or food processor. Add cilantro, lime juice, cumin, smoked paprika, salt, and black pepper. Pulse 8–10 times for a chunky salsa, or blend 20–30 seconds for a smoother consistency.
Taste and adjust. Taste for salt, lime, and heat. Adjust as needed. The salsa will deepen in flavor as it sits.
Cool before storing. Let salsa cool completely before transferring to jars or freezer bags. Label with date and contents. Refrigerates well for up to 1 week; freezes for up to 9 months.

Nutrition (per serving)

Fire-Roasted Vegetable Salsa — The Batch That Started Before the Chili