Salsa Time

Salsa Time

No, I don’t mean the dance. In fact, I am not a particularly good dancer at all. Just recently I wrote an article about tomatoes. I mentioned in there that I had some tomatoes in my green house. I managed to get quite the harvest this year. So, I decided to try and make some salsa with my tomatoes. I am also going to can some as well. I have never done either before, so this is all new to me.

The recipe I used is from the Bernardin Guide to Home Preserving. This is a book that I got from my mother in law. If you can’t find this book or you don’t have it there are plenty of salsa recipes on the internet. You may find one better than this one. I was a little hesitant about doing it. Like I mentioned I have never done this before so, I was unsure about. I like learning and trying new things, but at the same time I was nervous about it not turning out.

The recipe called for 5 500 ml Jars. I had 250 ml jars. I also, doubled the recipe and made a few mistakes and a couple of changes along the way. Below is the recipe that I used…

8 jalapeno peppers. I only used one. I didn’t want to make it too hot for my family.

7 cups of prepared tomatoes, 7- 8 medium – large tomatoes. All together I used about 14 tomatoes. You need to blanche the tomatoes it makes it easier to peel them. To blanche tomatoes you boil water and put the tomato in for about 30 seconds could take up to 60 seconds. I am sure I had my tomatoes in the water too long they came out mushy. I’ll admit I wasn’t really timing them. I left them till they floated. My recommendation is to time it carefully.

2 cups coarsely chopped onions. Onion another one of those words that forever reason I can’t figure out how to spell. Just like tomato.

1 cup coarsely chopped green bell pepper. It says green but I would imagine you could use whatever colour of pepper you want. Now that I am thinking about everything I was doing yesterday when I was making my salsa. I think the only thing I doubled was the tomatoes. I guess that is what happens when you are thinking about things other then what you are doing. I was thinking of how I was going to write this article.

3 cloves garlic finely chopped. I remember peeling 6 garlic, so the garlic was doubled too.

1 can of tomato paste. I used 2

¾ cup white vinegar. I defiantly measured this one twice.

½ cup fresh cilantro loosely packed. I only did a ¼ cup of cilantro. I don’t like cilantro I still put it in just not as much as I was supposed. Over the years I have gotten used to the taste, but I am still not a fan of it.

½ tsp ground cumin.

Remove seeds and finely chop jalapeno peppers. It says to wear gloves when handling hot peppers. I personally don’t wear gloves. I do however recommend wearing gloves. I have experienced the pain of touching your eye after cutting up a pepper. This took place many years ago. I was still living with my mom at the time. I was cutting up jalapeno peppers for nachos or to put on a sandwich. I do like to eat jalapeno peppers. When my eye started to bother me. I wear contacts I don’t remember what happened, but I do remember I had to touch my eye with contacts in. The pain. It was like nothing I have experienced before. I would birth another baby before I want to experience having hot peppers juice in my eye again. I took my contact out rinsed my eye. Kind of rinsed my contact but it wasn’t enough I guess because when I put it back in my eye was burning all over again. Now I make sure I wash my hands very well before I touch my eye after handling peppers.

Blanch, peel and coarsely chop the tomato. Measure 7 cups

Combine peppers, Tomatoes, onions, green peppers, garlic, Tomato paste, vinegar, cilantro and cumin in a large stainless steel or enamel saucepan. Bring to a boil and gently boil for about 30 minutes. Or the salsa reaches a desired consistency. I didn’t find that my salsa got any thicker.

Fill boiling water canner with water. I don’t have a canner, so I just used a Dutch oven for this. I Did my jars in two batches. Then you place the jars in the canner over high heat.

Place Snap Lids in boiling water. Boil the lids for about 5 minutes to soften sealing compound. In the book it also says to make sure you use Mason jars. Don’t use commercial jars, I think they are referring to pickle jars. That is what I understood anyway. From what the book says mason jars are made for boiling and high heat. The commercial jars are not. I think factories use a different way to sterilize their jars.

This is the part that lost me in the book. I am not sure if I did it right. Ladle salsa into a hot jar to within ½ inch or 1 cm of the top of the jar. They called it headspace. Remove air bubbles by sliding a rubber spatula between glass and food. I didn’t see any air bubbles. Then you’re supposed to readjust your head space again to the ½ inch or 1 cm. Wipe the jar rim to remove what you spilled. Center Snap Lid on Jar then apply the screw band just until it is finger tight. The part that lost me was the removing air part. I am not sure if I did it right and how it will affect my salsa. Place the jar in the canner and repeat process with the rest of your jars.

When all the jars are in or when all the jars that will fit are in. Place a lid over the canner and bring the water back to a boil. Let the jars boil in the canner or Dutch oven like I used for 20 minutes. After I took the jars out to cool down was when I saw the bubbles. I am not sure it this is normal or not. Cool for 24 hours. I until 3:30 pm before I can do the next step. Sealed lids curve downward. Remove screw bands, store separately. Wipe jars, label, and store in cool, dark place.

In total I got seven jars of salsa. In the book it doesn’t say how long to let the salsa sit for. Yesterday when I first read it, I thought it said two weeks, but today when I read the recipe it didn’t say anything about two weeks it just says to store separately. This was my salsa making experience.