Love & Lemons Cooking Club – August!

Join the Love & Lemons Cooking Club Challenge this month! It's easy to enter, and one lucky winner will receive a prize. Find all the details below.

Our Cooking Club is a fun way to celebrate the Love & Lemons community of readers. The concept is super simple—each month, I choose a recipe. You make it, and you leave a comment on the recipe’s blog post. At the end of the month, I randomly select one winner to receive a prize.

I love the sense of community that comes from so many people cooking one recipe each month. We’re kicking off our August challenge today with our homemade salsa recipe, and I hope you’ll join in the fun. Here’s how it works:

The Prize: A $100 Whole Foods Gift Card!

At the end of the month, I’ll randomly select a winner and share some of your photos. This time, we’re giving away a $100 Whole Foods gift card. 

In addition, for every entry we receive, we’ll donate $1 to No Kid Hungry.

August’s Recipe: Homemade Salsa

This month, we’re making homemade salsa! I love making this fresh tomato salsa in August. It uses two peak-season veggies—tomatoes and jalapeños—and has a wonderful fresh, bright flavor. It also requires zero cooking. It comes together in 10 minutes in the food processor!

• If you’re sensitive to spice, you have a few options for making a milder salsa. Remove the seeds and ribbing from the jalapeño, or start with just 1/2 jalapeño instead of a whole one. If you want to avoid the chile altogether, replace the jalapeño with 1/4 small green bell pepper, or skip it.
• If you don’t have a food processor, you can make this recipe in a blender or using an immersion blender. Just be careful not to over-blend it. The salsa should be slightly chunky, not pureed.

Serve it as a dip with tortilla chips, or add it to tacos, burrito bowls, and more! I hope you love this salsa as much as I do. 🙂

Get the recipe:

Homemade Salsa

Last Month’s Recipe

Last month, we celebrated the start of tomato season by making this panzanella salad.  I have to give a HUGE shoutout to L&L readers Laurie, Shelly, Rosalie, Terri, Adrienne, and Tracy, all of whom used homemade bread! I’m so impressed! I bet it made this salad extra-delicious.

Thanks to everyone else who joined in too! We saw lots of fun twists on this recipe, including Sarah’s version with plums and corn; Ilona’s version with mint and Aleppo pepper; and Kim’s version with dill, roasted chickpeas, and a soft-boiled egg.

Here are some of your photos:

And congrats to our winner Natalie!

To Recap

Enter the August Cooking Club Challenge by…

1. Making my homemade salsa sometime in August.
2. Leaving a comment on the homemade salsa blog post by August 31.
3. Sending a picture of your salsa to cookingclub@loveandlemons.com for a bonus entry.
4. And for another bonus entry, posting your photo on Instagram, tagging @loveandlemons and #loveandlemonscookingclub.

Happy cooking!