Too many tomatoes? Make salsa

When Palouse residents Nick and Nancy Whitesell first began making their signature “hot and tasty” salsa three years ago, it was because of a simple gardening mishap that led to about 1,000 tomatoes left over at the end of their growing season.

The Whitesells, who live in Palouse with Nancy’s 10-year-old daughter, Jocelyn, and their 2-year-old Mastiff named Victor, finished ripening the tomatoes in their pantry. Soon after, they began the process of creating the perfect salsa recipe.

It took about 10-12 experimental batches using different ingredient combinations, Nancy said, before they finally produced a salsa that had good flavor and a bit of a kick.

“People really like the heat but the heat isn’t so powerful that you can’t taste anymore,” said Nancy

The Whitesells create their unique blend of salsa using all-natural vegetables grown in their backyard garden. Once the growing season is over, the Whitesells spend days measuring, chopping, and cooking their ingredients, one batch at a time. One batch takes about an hour to make and yields seven jars.

“It’s a fairly quick process but when you’re making lots of them (batches) it’s pretty continual,” she said. “We just took the generic recipe of salsa and just expanded from there.”

For the Whitesells, making salsa is a way to spend time together as a family, as well as a small business endeavor. Both Nick, 46, and Nancy, 40, love to cook, and Jocelyn likes the smell of the salsa when it permeates their home. Although their salsa has been temporarily named “hot and tasty,” Nancy said she and Nick have tossed around the idea of changing the name to “Doble N,” a Spanish play off of both their names.

After a few years of sharing their salsa with family and friends, the Whitesells decided to test their product on the rest of the Palouse community. They set up a booth at the Palouse Music Festival in July and spent the day handing out free samples of chips and their salsa.

“We wanted to really see if we could get a following to try and see if it was people being nice or actually we could get people to like it,” Nancy said.

The people certainly seemed to like their product because the Whitesells sold 60 pint-sized jars of salsa during the nine-hour music festival. Nancy said she saw people of all ages trying the homemade salsa and sharing it with their friends, which she said is indicative of how special the secret recipe is.

“Nick always says ‘because it’s made with love,’ but I think, you know, you either get a hot salsa or it’s not hot, but ours has that kick,” Nancy said. “Everybody can enjoy it. We saw kids eating it, because it doesn’t continue to burn.”

Nancy said she and her husband were pleasantly surprised with how successful their first public sale was. Now they’re hoping for the word to spread about their blend of salsa.

“If we can really get a good following ... then we want to start working it into stores and see if we can start pushing it that way. That’s our goal,” Nancy said.

Until then, Nancy said she and her husband of eight years plan to keep selling their homemade salsa at Palouse community events and from their home. Anyone interested in buying a jar of salsa can email Nancy at fealy71@hotmail.com. Each jar costs $3.75.

Meredith Metsker can be reached at (208) 882-5561, ext. 236, or by email to briefs@dnews.com.