Roasted Tomato-Chipotle Salsa

Now if you ran across a recipe with that title, could you pass it up?

Well we know I couldn't. The recipe called for dried cascabel and dried chipotle peppers--and BTW, the cascabels are REALLY hard to locate here--but as usual, I didn't pay quite enough attention. The recipe called for 12 of each.As you will notice, what I have is 6 of each. Now the recipe said it would fill 8 half-pint jars, or produce 8 cups. 12 peppers in 8 cups is a LOT of pepper and these babies are not exactly subtle, so I decided to go ahead anyway. (Sometimes I like to have an automatic excuse handy in case things don't turn out so well.)

While I was roasting a big sheet of Roma tomatoes, garlic, onion, and green bell peppers, the recipe said to heat the dried peppers on a skillet until they were soft & pliable, which worked really well with the chipotle peppers, but these guyswere a bit of a problem. I can guarantee they were heated, but not necessarily soft & pliable in too many places. Then they are reconstituted in hot water for about 15 minutes, then pureed in a food processor or blender with the hot water. Then all the roasted vegetables are peeled & chopped, and added to some vinegar and everything is "cooked until thick." I don't know if I "cooked until thick" enough, as I ended up with probably enough left over to fill a 9th jar, but I just put it in the refrigerator. Using only half the number of peppers, I was concerned about the flavor, but it has a REALLY strong smoky flavor and certainly some heat, so I'm going to guess we might not have actually liked the full number of peppers. It will change a bit as it mellows I would guess, but I think it's going to be used more of a sauce than a salsa. I'm thinking that it would go really well with a nice earthy, mellow cheese of some sort?