Fruit Salsa With Cinnamon Chips

Scouting season, informally. I drove up to the Crazies Tuesday after a morning of accounts, parked at the trailhead, walked in to the bench. The big bull from the past two seasons is no longer using the drainage — the sign is different, smaller, a different animal. Either the big bull took a legal tag last year from another hunter, or he moved his territory, or he's dead from causes other than hunting. This is the thing about scouting: most years the place confirms what you know about it. Occasionally it surprises you.

Spent the afternoon reading the terrain from the bench, watching two cow elk work the creek drainage below me, noting the changes from August to late September in a pasture I've been watching for nine years. There's a satisfaction in that duration of observation — the way a place reveals itself slowly to someone who keeps returning. I wrote two pages in the elk notebook about what changed this year and what stayed the same. Both are information.

Tom's second book has a working title: Mules I Have Known. The publisher confirmed interest last week and Tom is aiming to have the manuscript finished by December. Claire was here for the weekend and helped him organize the sections, which he wasn't sure needed organizing but which he accepted when she demonstrated that the current order didn't build the way the horse book built. He acknowledged the point and reorganized. That's Tom Whelan: resistant to suggestions in theory, pragmatic when the logic is clear.

Made roasted tomatillo salsa verde from the first tomatillos — charred under the broiler with garlic and jalapeño and onion, blended with cilantro and lime. The charring gives it depth that the raw version doesn't have. Put up four jars. Ate one fresh over eggs the same night.

The tomatillo salsa went into jars, but there was still fruit on the counter — the last of what the garden and the roadside stand had to offer before everything turns toward frost. So I made a batch of fruit salsa too, bright and sweet where the verde was smoky and sharp, and served it with cinnamon chips that evening. Different end of the spectrum, same instinct: put up what’s here while it’s here.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 10 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 8

Ingredients

For the Fruit Salsa:

2 kiwis, peeled and diced
2 Golden Delicious apples, peeled, cored, and diced
1 lb fresh strawberries, hulled and diced
1/4 cup fresh blueberries
3 tablespoons fruit preserves (apricot or peach)
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

For the Cinnamon Chips:

10 (8-inch) flour tortillas
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Instructions

Make the salsa. In a large bowl, combine the diced kiwis, apples, strawberries, and blueberries. Stir in the fruit preserves, sugar, and lemon juice. Cover and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes to let the flavors meld.
Preheat the oven. Heat oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Prepare the chips. Brush one side of each tortilla lightly with melted butter. In a small bowl, mix the sugar and cinnamon together. Sprinkle the cinnamon-sugar evenly over the buttered side of each tortilla.
Cut and arrange. Using a pizza cutter or sharp knife, cut each tortilla into 8 wedges. Arrange the wedges in a single layer on the prepared baking sheets, cinnamon-sugar side up.
Bake. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until the chips are golden and crisp. Let them cool on the baking sheets — they’ll crisp up further as they cool.
Serve. Give the chilled fruit salsa a gentle stir and serve alongside the cinnamon chips.

Nutrition (per serving)

Fruit Salsa With Cinnamon Chips — What the Garden Gives When the Mountain Holds Back