Sunday 17 August 2014

Salsa!

It's salsa time!  And, not the hot, steamy dance.  LOL

Since my poor tomato plants wouldn't give it up this year, I had to buy my tomatoes.  I found a good price and bought 30 pounds.

Yesterday, I did all the prep work.

I started with peeling and coring the tomatoes.  To peel them, you need to pop them into boiling water for a couple of minutes and then into cold water.  The skins will slip right off, afterwards. Here are some tomatoes peeled and cored:


Then onto the chopping.  A couple of hours later (LOL), 2 large bowls of chopped tomatoes.


Next up, onions and peppers.  (Don't forget to wear gloves with the hot peppers!) Isn't this nice and colourful?




Pretty bowls went into the fridge and had to wait for today.

Now onto the cooking!

Into the pot went brown sugar, salt, garlic, paprika, tomato paste, and vinegar.


Notice that I didn't put in any cilantro.  Yes, yes, salsa should have cilantro but honestly, I'm not that much of a fan.  It gives it this weird soapy flavour.  Therefore, I found a recipe that doesn't use it.  Hey, it works for us, right?

Add the chopped veggies and stir it all up.  Here it is in the pot ready to be cooked down for at least an hour. Gorgeous!


Done and into jars for processing.  Ten minutes for 1-litre jars (15 minutes for me as I'm at elevation).




I finished with eleven 1-litre jars and three 500-ml jars of salsa from 30 pounds of tomatoes.

Mild Salsa

5 pounds tomatoes, peeled, cored and chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
1 green, yellow, or orange pepper, chopped
2 large jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped
1 small can (156-ml) tomato paste
3/4 cup vinegar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp. coarse (pickling) salt
1 tbsp. paprika
3 garlic cloves, minced

Combine all ingredients into a large pot and bring to a boil.  Simmer, uncovered and stirring occasionally, for at least an hour, until desired thickness is achieved. Fill hot, sterilized canning jars with salsa.  Process in boiling water bath 5 minutes for 500-ml jars and 10 minutes for 1-litre jars (adjust for elevation).

Makes approximately five 500-ml jars.



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