Ms. Bihari's 3rd graders make salsa roja

This week Ms. Bihari's 3rd graders made salsa roja as part of the Marquez School seed to table curriculum.  As 2nd graders these children had planted tomatoes and cilantro in their class salsa gardens. Tomatoes are warm season veggies.

We used some tomatoes from the former gardens and purchased the remainder of the ingredients with a gift card donated by Gelson's Markets.

Before "cooking" we discussed the following things: salsa roja means red sauce and it was named by Spanish explorers in Mexico; salsa verde would be green sauce; salsa was made a long time ago by the Incas, Aztecs and Mayans; we would be composting the vegetable scraps from our cooking in the garden compost bin; we'd be using 3 T. of olive oil in the sauce and 1 T. = 3 t.

Thanks to Carolyn Hasselkorn, a community volunteer who helped with this lesson.

The procedure: each child had a reusable IKEA plate and knife which they used to cut the tomatoes and cilantro. Some children prepared the onion, garlic, olive oil and lime juice. Then everything was mixed together.  The recipe can be tailored to any number of kids...

Salsa Roja

8 large tomatoes (ideally of different colors-can also combine with cherry tomatoes)
2 garlic cloves
2 scallions
1/2 bunch cilantro
3 T. olive oil
3 T. lime juice
1 jalapeno pepper-we didn't use this in class

Adding the olive oil and lime juice. Note the reusable plate.

Colorful salsa

Adding the veggie scraps to the compost bin