When you start your tomato and pepper plants from seeds, it's easy to end up with WAY more plants than you need. Mathew and I have a problem with discarding any seedlings that look healthy, and we always have so many good ones. Therefore, we end up planting over 30 tomato plants and well over 60 pepper plants. The funniest part is neither of us really even like tomatoes. They are just fun to grow and give away to friends, family, and anyone who will take them since we get to the point where we don't even want to look at another tomato.
However, we do love canning salsa, which allows us to enjoy our homegrown tomatoes all year long. Over the past 4 years that we've been canning, we've never made the same salsa twice. We experiment with different spice combinations, alter the ratio of hot to mild peppers, etc. We made our first batch of 2011 salsa this weekend, and it is absolutely the best batch we've ever made. I thought I'd share the recipe in case there is anyone else out there who enjoys making salsa as much as we do. Of course, if you aren't one who cans food, you could always eat this fresh!
Indgredients:
12 cups tomatoes
4 cups bell peppers
2 cups hot peppers (we used a blend of jalapeno and Hungarian hot wax peppers)
4 cups onions
1 cup vinegar
3 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
4 cloves garlic
1 T cumin
2 6 oz cans tomato paste
Core the tomatoes then blanch them to peel off the skins
Run the tomatoes, peppers, and onion through a food processor to chop them up
Mix all ingredients together in a large stock pot and bring to a boil
Simmer 15 minutes
Process in a hot water bath (20 minutes for pints and 45 for quarts)
We were able to get 6 quarts from this recipe.
NOTE: If you are canning, please remember that it is not safe to adjust the ratio of tomatoes, peppers, and onions to vinegar as this could cause spoilage.
Michael, if you're lucky, we might save a jar of this for you for when you get home :)
Only one jar?
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