Thursday, July 16, 2009

Salsa


Before the deer herd moved through my garden and destroyed everything in their path, I had visions of making and canning salsa with my own garden tomatoes. My plan has been altered and once again it will be the Farmer's Market to the rescue. This recipe is from my roomate "C" from college and it is easy and delicious. We like our salsa on the "thin" side. Seems like everything you can get in the supermarket is "thick and chunky"....well, we don't like "thick and chunky" thank you very much! I will warn you now that this can be a lot of work. BUT it is worth it when you can open a jar of it any time of year and totally bypass the salsa section in you local grocery store. This recipe is meant to be "canned" using the water bath method of canning. You can also make this and put it in your refrigerator but you have to eat it right away. It doubles and triples easily.

SALSA

4 large ripe tomatoes
1 banana pepper
1 hot pepper or Jalepeno pepper
1 small to medium sized onion, chopped
2 Tbsp. white vinegar
2 tsp. canning salt or coarse Kosher salt
black pepper to taste
2 cloves garlic, minced

Peel tomatoes by placing them in a pot of boiling water for about 30 seconds. Remove them and place in a large bowl of cold water. The skins should then slip off easily. Core tomatoes and cut into small to medium pieces. Core and chop the peppers. Chop onions. Combine the tomatoes, peppers , onions, and garlic in a large pot. Add the vinegar, salt and pepper, stir and bring to a boil over medium high heat. Then simmer and cook for 30 minutes.

Fill clean canning jars with salsa mixture. Secure with new lids, and rings. Process in boiling water bath for 20 minutes. If you have never canned before it is a good idea to check out the tips offered at www.freshpreserving.com . They can teach you everything you need to know to make it easy and to do it safely. Set hot jars gently on kitchen towel to cool. Yield: approximately 2 pint jars.

2 comments:

Tee said...

Thank you! Thank you! My father in law unloaded a bunch of tomatoes on us yesterday, and I had no idea what to do with them. My husband loves them, but me, not so much. He suggested salsa, but I didn't have a recipe.

Lisa said...

You're welcome. Good luck with it! I used to make big vats of this but got to be too much work. Now I just make a few jars at a time which is much better!