One of my highest priorities this summer was to preserve as much salsa as I possibly could. Salsa is by far my favorite condiment. I love the zestiness, and it's healthy, because it's pretty much nothing but vegetables. When the tomatoes first became ripe, I would make fresh salsa pretty much everyday. I love it. It tastes like summer itself, but I want to eat salsa all year, so I was going to have to do some canning. It was a lot of work, but anybody can do it. Almost everything going into my salsa came from the garden, with the exception of the vinegar and the salt. Unfortunately, I also had to buy some of the onions. I had a nice little onion crop, but we ate them all before the end of the summer, and salsa calls for a lot of onions. One other minor annoyance is that I planted so much cilantro, but most of it went to seed before I started making the salsa. I was able to salvage some of it, and I had quite a bit of parsley and spicy basil, so I added those to make sure the salsa had some herbal freshness.
I had a salsa recipe, but I only followed it loosely. I generally made it in batches with a base of about 20 pounds of tomatoes, so my recipe was something like this:
- 20 lbs. tomatoes
- 6 onions
- 4 bell peppers (various colors if possible)
- 20 jalapenos (or any chili pepper)
- 1/4 c. kosher salt
- 1 c. vinegar
- 1 c. mixed herbs (cilantro, parsley, and basil)
I started by coring the tomatoes and putting them in the food processor. I put them in a 12 qt. pot (sometimes I need more than 1 pot) over medium heat, and I repeated the process for the rest of the vegetables. I then added the salt, vinegar, and herbs. After all the ingredients were added I would bring them to a boil, and let it boil for a couple of hours until it got nice and thick. When it got close to being done. I brought the 21 qt. canning pot to a boil. I then added the salsa to some clean qt. jars; added the lids; and submerged them in the canning pot for about 45 minutes. After 45 minutes, I got them out, and let them cool while the seal formed. I ended up making over 20 qts. Now they're up on the top shelf with the other preserves. Dwindling faster than I would like them to.
