berry picking and fresh salsa

i have yet to venture into mushroom foraging, and i wasn't especially delighted with my dandelion finds this spring, but what's not to LOVE about fresh-picked wild berries right out of the backyard?

i love my local farmers' market, and i have spent a small fortune on local, organic strawberries and blueberries this summer, which i think makes picking wild berries even more satisfying.

maybe two weeks ago, dylan and i went black raspberry picking--just around cluster of trees beside the barn. our returns were very modest, but delicious. we also found exactly one handful of early blackberries, but this week the blackberries are out in full force.

dylan loved carrying around the little bowl, and she was remarkably undeterred by brambles. you can just barely see her berry-stained lips in this photo. she's fickle about fruit; some days she'll gobble anything, and on others she's picky, but dylan loved eating berries we picked ourselves.

again, we just kept to the cluster of nearby trees, but we found enough for a big fruit salad and several oatmeal breakfasts. i kept it pretty simple, but other camp friends of our turned their finds into a delicious blackberry pie that they kindly invited us over to share. i may just have to venture a little farther out onto camp property to gather enough for to make pie, too. what could be better than that?

the wilderness staff came over tonight, and i baked chips and made salsa. the jalapeno, lime and garlic were from the grocery (but we're growing our own garlic now for later this fall), the tomatoes and onion were from the farmers' market, and the cilantro we grew in our garden. (the deer jumped in and decimated all the heirloom tomatoes and beans that we were so excited to grow. booooo. i wish they would have eaten the zucchini or lettuce instead.)

fresh summer salsa (this yields quite a bit)

5 tomatoes (i cut them into quarters or so, remove and compost the seeds, and dice small)

1 onion, finely chopped

4 cloves garlic

1 small jalapeno, finely chopped, seeds and ribs removed (with gloves! i learned my lesson.)

1 lime, juice and zest

1 c cilantro, chopped

salt and pepper

i let it sit in the fridge a bit to meld the flavors, and then i decided to strain it in the colander, as it was a little wet. you could also just stick it into the blender or food processor, to make it less chunky/wet.

this post is part of a carnival called Food Roots--go there to read others' adventures in local, seasonal eating.