Several people have asked for my salsa recipe over the past couple months. Sorry it's taken me so long to get to this. We actually picked 90 pounds of tomatoes on September 8. We froze about 32 pounds, and we made salsa and spaghetti sauce. Jonathan and Margaret picked the tomatoes, then Katherine and I slipped the skins off. I was recently talking to someone about this and realized that many people wind up with burned fingertips because they pull boiling hot tomatoes out of the pot and try to pull off the skins immediately. To save your fingers, you need to put the tomatoes in a large bowl of cold water for a couple minutes. They'll cool off, and you can painlessly peel them.
As for my salsa recipe ... I just use whatever we have in the garden at the time. This batch included tomatoes, banana peppers, jalapenos, garlic, and onions. I like to let it sit for an hour or two to give the tomatoes a chance to drain, then I pour off as much liquid as I can. You only need to let it cook for 15 minutes or so, but I let it cook longer to reduce more liquid. I'm not a big fan of watery salsa. I added salt and vinegar, according to the ratios used in the
Ball Blue Book.
The vinegar is only important if you are actually canning the salsa. If you are going to eat it right away, the amount of vinegar you use is not important, but you have to refrigerate the salsa. Basically, vinegar is the preservative for canning salsa. If you like fresh-tasting salsa (no vinegar), you can freeze it to make it last longer.
Several people have asked for my salsa recipe over the past couple months. Sorry it's taken me so long to get to this. We actually picked 90 pounds of tomatoes on September 8. We froze about 32 pounds, and we made salsa and spaghetti sauce. Jonathan and Margaret picked the tomatoes, then Katherine and I slipped the skins off. I was recently talking to someone about this and realized that many people wind up with burned fingertips because they pull boiling hot tomatoes out of the pot and try to pull off the skins immediately. To save your fingers, you need to put the tomatoes in a large bowl of cold water for a couple minutes. They'll cool off, and you can painlessly peel them.
As for my salsa recipe ... I just use whatever we have in the garden at the time. This batch included tomatoes, banana peppers, jalapenos, garlic, and onions. I like to let it sit for an hour or two to give the tomatoes a chance to drain, then I pour off as much liquid as I can. You only need to let it cook for 15 minutes or so, but I let it cook longer to reduce more liquid. I'm not a big fan of watery salsa. I added salt and vinegar, according to the ratios used in the Ball Blue Book.
The vinegar is only important if you are actually canning the salsa. If you are going to eat it right away, the amount of vinegar you use is not important, but you have to refrigerate the salsa. Basically, vinegar is the preservative for canning salsa. If you like fresh-tasting salsa (no vinegar), you can freeze it to make it last longer.
4 comments:
Hi Deb,
Your Salsa looks awesome! I wish I a had been as good as you getting my tomatoes in. I did better than last year, but a lot of room for improvement. I have a goat related question. We have been drinking the milk raw, strained and cooled quickly. Everyone is going great with it, but me, and love it. Seem healthier too, not coming down with the fall colds yet or the stomach bug going around. Me, well it upsets my stomach a little bit. Would pasteurizing help or is it just my system talking longer to adjust? Any advice would be great. Hope all is well with you and yours.
That was supposed to say taking longer to adjust! I better go have my coffee.
Hi Kara,
From what I have read, pasteurizing the milk would make it harder for you to digest, because it kills all the natural bacteria that's good and helps aid in digestion. You could try making kefir or yogurt with it, which means actually adding more bacteria to it! I do know one woman who said she only drinks her homemade sheep kefir. If you don't like the slightly bitter taste of kefir, you can start out putting it in the blender with some frozen berries and honey ... makes the MOST delicious smoothie in the world!
Good luck!
Oops, I meant to say "sour" taste of kefir ... it's not really bitter. Maybe sour isn't the right word either. It's a tangy taste! Maybe I need more coffee too!
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