Using Produce From the Garden: Making Salsa

Making Salsa

There is nothing more satisfying than being able to create delicious home canned produce from your garden (or grandma's), or the road side stand, and put it away for snowy days to come. I know those cold, winter days are fast approaching, but hopefully you can still get ahold of some luscious ripe tomatoes, some onions and peppers to create a batch of yummy salsa for yourself. 

In making Salsa, I've found a lot of it is "eyeballing" and tasting the mixture to make sure it has the flavor you want. This recipe can be easily varied to meet your own taste needs, including how hot you want it. So don't be afraid to add another jalapeño if you like it a little spicier, or take one away if you want it milder. Also, this recipe makes a lot of salsa--(about 10 quarts and ten pints total) so if you want less, just cut the amounts in half.

Step by Step How to make Home Bottled Salsa

Ingredients

1/2 bushel ripe tomatoes

2 large green bell peppers

3 large red bell peppers

2 jalapeño peppers

1 large yellow banana pepper

3 Anaheim peppers

15 cups chopped onions

20 cloves garlic, peeled

4 cups white vinegar

1/2 cup sugar

4 Tablespoons pickling salt

1 Teaspoon ground black pepper

3 Tablespoons dried crushed oregano

2 Tablespoons ground cumin

2 large cans (12 oz) of Tomato Paste

4 bunches of fresh cilantro 

In a large sink, rinse off your tomatoes. Then blanch them. You blanch tomatoes by putting them in a pot of boiling water for about 1-3 minutes (until the water starts to bubble again), and then plunge them into a second sink filled with cold water. This makes it super easy to peel them.

You can see in the picture how the skins are pulling away from the fruit. At this point, peel them, and cut them into chunks, and put into a large stainless steel pot. Mine is a 16 quart pot and this recipe fills it to the top.
So if you don't have a large enough stainless steel cooking pot, either borrow one, or cut the recipe down to fit your own pot. 

While speaking of cooking pots, I should mention that you never want to use aluminum when cooking with tomatoes. The acid in the tomatoes will actually pit the aluminum, and of course it will end up in your finished product. Not what you want. So--look for a large, stainless steel pot, and you are good to go.

Go ahead and add your vinegar, salt, pepper, dried oregano, cumin and sugar. Turn your stove onto medium low. Chop the onions and stir them into the mix. If you think 15 cups sounds like too many onions--stir in 10 and see how it looks. This is where I start to "eyeball" this recipe. If 10 cups looks about right, I go with that. However, if 15 cups looks too scanty--I may add an extra cup or two. You get to decide. 

Take your peeled garlic cloves (20 or more--depending on your tastes), and put in a food processor and blend them. Either that or you can finely chop them, or use a garlic press. I just found the food processor to be the quickest and easiest way to chop them up.

Now it's time to work with the peppers. If you like, you can chop them all up, and put them into the mix as they are. However, I really like the flavor of roasted peppers--so although it takes some extra time, I feel it is worth it. I fire up the grill, and roast them, until their skins are blackened or bubbly, them plunge them into ice cold water and peel the skins off. A word to the wise: Make sure you wear rubber gloves when you are touching the peppers, or you won't forget to next time. Especially when you reach up to rub your eye! Now, either finely chop them, or run through the food processor. Add to the pot.

By this time your house will be smelling oh, so good! Take a large spoon, and stir the pot every so often to keep things from sticking to the bottom. Let it simmer on low for about 1 1/2 to 2 hours, until the tomatoes are cooked and the onions a bit translucent. 

While things are cooking, get your bottles ready. Either hand wash in hot sudsy water, or run through the dishwasher your canning jars. Also, get your canning lids ready as well. As previously mentioned, this batch did about 10 quarts and 10 pints of salsa. Since my canner only holds 8 quarts (if I squeeze them in), there are 2 quarts of salsa in my fridge that I didn't process. We'll just use it them up first. 

At this point, I like to strain off about 1 or two pints of juice to thicken things up a bit. I will go ahead and bottle this, and use it to make chili with later on. If you like your salsa thinner, or if this batch seems thick enough you can skip that step. Also, about now you can add the tomato paste and stir it in to make even a thicker richer salsa. Yum! The last step is to rinse the cilantro, chop it up, and stir it into the mix. Do this right before you are ready to bottle the salsa so the cilantro is fresh and green. It will cook enough during the canning process. If you don't care for cilantro, you can just skip this step. Make sure, as you go along, that you take a taste here and there and tweak the recipe according to your own tastes. Add more salt or sugar or peppers or spices or whatever you think it needs. When you think its ready--time for canning.

Fill your canner full of hot water, and put onto boil. Fill each jar within a 1/2 inch from the rim with thick hot salsa. Run a clean cloth over the rim of each jar. In a separate small pan, put your canning lids in boiling water for a couple of minutes. Carefully remove with tongs or a canning wand magnet each lid, and place on each jar. Put canning lid ring over this, and screw down tight. Put bottles into canner of boiling water, and bring back to a boil. 

Process pints for 35 minutes, and quarts for 45 minutes. When done, cool on a towel on your counter. Listen for that lovely popping sound as each lid seals. Music to my ears!

Enjoy your slice of summer all winter long with chips, tacos, or however you like salsa! If you have a favorite way to use salsa, share your ideas below. 

A couple of web sites to check out for more canning information are:
http://www.pickyourown.org/allaboutcanning.htm

http://extension.usu.edu/canning/

By the way, this blog post is dedicated to my friend Amy C. She requested info on how to make salsa. If any of you have something you are interested in regarding food preservation, storage, or preparedness--just let me know and I'll see what I can do. In the mean time, just see what little thing you can do today to be prepared for tomorrow. Baby steps are all that are needed.