I’ve been away from my kitchen and from blogging for over a week now.  June 3rd, our family joined a team of 25 people from our congregation and headed to San Marcos, Honduras to work at Mission Lazarus.  We had a medical team that set up a make shift clinic in the town of Los Colorados and treated 100 patients a day.  A crew of teenage guys and men spent countless hours mixing concrete and pouring a floor for the church building in Los Colorados.  I was blessed to work with a team of ladies along side our daughter and teach the children in two different villages and help paint a school room in one of the villages.  Our team also delivered food to nearly 100 families in the area and inventoried/weighed 3 tons of red beans.  Although Honduras is one of the poorest countries in the Western world, God is very much present and at work there.  Visit www.missionlazarus.org to find our more.

The days were long and hot and full of hard work.  However, it was a blessing to be able to retreat at the end of a hard day to the posada at Mission Lazarus. The posada is a retreat on top of a mountain.  We had comfortable cabins with water and electricity.  And each night the cooks at the mission would prepare appetizers and dinner for us.  Most meals included re fried red beans and rice following appetizers of chips and salsa or chips and bean dip.  Nobody wanted to miss out on the appetizers and the salsa was incredible.  I am so thankful Meredith (one of the Americans who lives at the mission and supervises the work at 3 clinics) was able to translate the salsa recipe straight from the mouth of the cook so I could blog here about it.  My family can’t wait for me to make this salsa as much as we can’t wait to return to Honduras next year.  Here’s it is:

• 3 pounds tomatoes finely minced (removed seeds and watery portions first)
• 4 sweet onions finely minced
• 4-5 jalapeno peppers finely minced (seeds removed) or more to suit your taste.
• 1/2 cup finely chopped cilantro
• Apple Cider Vinegar (the cook didn’t give an exact amount, so I’m going with 1/4 cup for starters)
• salt to taste

Mix all the chopped ingredients, salt, and vinegar together in a large dish about 2-3 hours prior to serving.  I am pretty sure the salsa was not refrigerated during this 2-3 hour period because it was served at room temperature.  And there was no need to refrigerate any leftovers because there weren’t any!  However, our food standards are different here in the US and I will certainly be refrigerating this salsa while the flavors marry since fresh onions are excellent breeding mediums for bacteria.

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Tags: Honduran, Honduras, Mission Lazarus, Salsa