Salsa

I was asked for the salsa recipe I use. Here it is:

Tomato Salsa (using paste tomatoes)

from: Salsa Recipes for Canning (A PNW Extension publication)

7 quarts peeled, cored, chopped tomatoes (I pour boiling water over a big bowl of tomatoes, drain it off, cover with cold water, peel and pulse in a food processor, then measure it out)

4 cups seeded, chopped long green chilies (Anaheim mostly, some Ancho in this batch–again, clean them, then pulse in food processor, then measure–it’s whatever grew for me. None of these have heat in my garden, but they do have a good flavor. The heat comes from the other peppers.)

Jalepeno or Hungarian Wax (hot) peppers–I used 8, but you have to taste as you go–add 4, then taste, then add more if needed. The temperature varies so much in my home-grown peppers. I’ve added a Serrano in the past if I needed more heat.

5 cups chopped onions

6 cloves garlic, pulsed with a batch of the tomatoes, onions or peppers

2 cups bottled lemon juice

2 Tablespoons salt

1 Tablespoon black pepper

2 Tablespoons cumin

3 Tablespoons dried oregano leaves

2 Tablespoons fresh cilantro

Combine all ingredients except spices and bring to a boil, stirring frequently. I actually use 2 pots if I make the full batch, 1 if I do 1/2 batch. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally. Add spices and simmer 20 more minutes, stirring occasionally. Ladle hot into hot pint jars. Leave 1/2 inch headspace. Adjust lids and process in hot water bath for 15 minutes at 0-1,000 feet altitude, 20 minutes at 1,001-6,000 feet, 25 minutes above 6,000 feet.

Yield: 13 pints

This works best with Roma tomatoes. If you have to use a lot of the more juicy ones, there is another recipe that suggests using a little tomato paste to thicken or to cook it down for quite a bit longer to thicken it up. I use this in cooking sometimes, but mostly it is eaten right out of the jar on chips, tacos, taco salad as dressing, etc. Jar after jar after jar after jar:). They love it!

6 thoughts on “Salsa”

  1. Thought I had written thank-you yesterday for the recipe. I don’t see the post though. So I’ll try again.

    And a question – when do you take the cores out of the tomatoes if you use the boiling water/cold water in a bowl method?
    Cheers

    1. I got distracted with a bowl and box of tomatoes and a little boy and didn’t check my comments yesterday:).

      I pick the blanched tomatoes out of the bowl of water (I’m talking really big bowl that is usually down in the sink.). I hold them in one hand and use a combination of my hand and/or knife to get the skin off. It usually sticks on where the stem connected so I have to make a little cut there. Plus, because I never make the little “x” on the bottom that they talk about in the canning books, I often have to make a little slit or poke with a knife to get the skin started coming off. Then, I just cut out the core if there is one. If the tomato is huge, and full of core, I set it down on a cutting board on the counter and chop it up and remove it that way. Otherwise I just hold it in my hand and cut with the other hand. Some of my small tomatoes, like the Glaciers, have basically no core, but the large ones often have a huge, wide-spread core.

    1. I hope you do, too! Usually, I think there is no such thing as too many tomatoes. But, when Rob’s cousin offered us a few more boxes, I had to decline. Around here, at least for me, it was a good tomato year. Some aren’t.

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