Canning Tomato Salsa

We enjoy spicy foods and this salsa satisfies in the middle of winter when there aren't tomatoes or peppers growing anywhere near us.  We eat this salsa with eggs, tacos, or just as a dip for tortilla chips.  It is healthy and addicting.

This recipe is taken directly from the instruction booklet I got with my Presto Pressure Canner, however the recipe specifically says it is for water bath processing, not pressure canning.  The canner can be used for both, though I always pull out my old enamel water bath canner, old habits die hard.

Keep the recipe as listed below for safe and proper canning results.  The salsa can be canned using a water bath because of the cider vinegar in the recipe.  The only change I make is to leave the jalapeno and tomato seeds in, we like the heat from the jalapeno seeds and don't mind the tomato seeds, so I don't bother removing them.  I leave out the hot pepper sauce since that is optional and something I would have to buy, the jalapeno seeds provide enough heat.

Zesty Salsa
~from the Presto Pressure Canner instruction booklet~

10 cups, chopped, seeded, peeled, cored tomatoes (about 6 pounds)
5 cups chopped and seeded long green peppers (about 2 pounds)
5 cups chopped onions (about 1 1/2 pounds)
2 1/2 cups chopped and seeded hot peppers (about 1 pound)
1 1/4 cups cider vinegar
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons cilantro, minced
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce (optional)

Combine all ingredients in a large saucepot, adding hot pepper sauce, if desired.  Bring mixture to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes.  Ladle hot salsa into hot, sterilized jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace.  Adjust two piece caps.  Process 15 minutes using the boiling water canning method.

Yield: 6 pints

The Weekend Harvest

Tomatoes in all shapes and sizes.

Some tomaotes I chose to pick before they were completely ripe because it has been a race with the slugs to see who can get to the ripe tomatoes first (I win).  The tomatoes will finish ripening on the counter.  The strawberries are still coming on strong, this was just one days picking.

Carrots will be stored in the refrigerator, that is where I have the best success of keeping them, plus I really don't have very many, we will eat these in the next few weeks.  Lots of jalapenos and there are green peppers waiting to be picked.

This week: pickled jalapenos and tomato salsa, canned.

Listed on Daphne's Dandelions Harvest Monday

Sunday Stills

Buttercup

Weekly Garden Update

The spinach and lettuce I planted is coming in nicely.  Hopefully we will be able to eat on it throughout September, and if covered at night perhaps into the beginning of October, we'll see.

The weather this week reminded us that fall is on the way.  We have had a couple nights dip into the upper 40s and some days in the low 70s.  The weekend forecast though is for a return to summers heat, with highs in the upper 80s.  After that last blast of heat I think it will be time to pick the peppers.

There have been lots of tomatoes ripening and canning tomatoes has begun.  There should be plenty more if the slugs don't get to them before I do.

Strawberries have been coming on strong, I've picked several bowl fulls and the plants are still blooming.

Cucumber plants are still setting out blossoms.  If we get a long fall we will have cucumbers well into September, but around here the weather can change in a heartbeat.

I love having flowers in the garden, these zinnias are so pretty.

Found our dragonfly friend while picking beans, the dragonfly never flew off as I was moving the plant around and taking photos.

Emergency Water Supply

A few years ago we put together an emergency water supply.  We thankfully haven't needed to use it, but it is a good idea to have one in case of a natural disaster or city water emergency.

I didn't want to use plastic to store our water in, so we collected as many glass apple juice containers as we could.  The water in these jugs should be changed occasionally, so to remember to do so I change it out with the seasons, thus we put fresh water in four times a year.  The water in the jugs does not go to waste, it will be used to water plants, inside or out, or to fill the washing machine.

Anybody else have an emergency water supply?  How do you store or manage yours?

Homemade Plum Juice

The plums are ripe on the trees now and there is no way we can eat them all fresh before they go bad.  I don't want to see them go to waste so I have been making plum juice every evening this week.  I did the same with apples last year and we had delicious fresh tasting apple juice all winter.  It saves a considerable amount of money, we still buy orange juice once in a while during the colder months, but with our homemade juice in the pantry we don't buy nearly as much.  Plus I just don't like to see food go to waste.  Just like the abundant produce I gather from the garden, often it is more than we can eat so I save it for later using the method that produces the best results, whether that be canning, drying, freezing or fermenting.  These plums are best for juicing or making jelly.  I tried cutting them in half to dry some, but they are mostly juice inside with a tough, sour skin and they just turned to mush in my hand.  We have enough homemade plum, cherry and apple jelly to last us through the year, so juice it is.  

Making juice with a steam juicer, is a simple process, first the fruit is washed.

Then water is poured into the basin at the bottom of the juice steamer and the fruit is placed in the colander at the top of the steamer with a little sugar.  As the steam rises the fruit heats up and juice runs out of the colander into the pan below.

Steaming juice then flows out the attached hose and into a steralized jar, a prepared lid and band are placed on top and as the juice cools the lids seal and the juice is canned and ready to be stored for winter.

The fruit in the colander is reduced to a small pile at the bottom of the colander,  I place this in the compost bin.

I am able to get between 3 and 4 quarts of juice from each batch of plums, apples don't provide quite as much juice, usually 2 to 3 quarts per batch.  I find it interesting how the color of the juice changes after it cools.  Above is the batch I did Tuesday evening just before I took the picture.  Below are the jars of juice I processed on Monday evening, going from red to pink as it cools.

Simple Lives Thursday

Fresh Clean and Pure

Dragonfly Resting

Strawberry Walnut Bread

Strawberry Walnut Bread
Makes 1 9x5 loaf

2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup honey
1/4 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups chopped fresh strawberries
1 cup walnuts

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Grease and flour a 9 x 5 bread loaf pan.

Cream together the eggs, oil, honey, sour cream or yogurt and vanilla.  Stir in the flours, soda, and salt.  Fold in strawberries and walnuts.

Bake for 1 hour and 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Sense of Home Kitchen / Recipes / Bread

Summer's Bounty

Like I wrote last week Friday, I really appreciate all the produce we receive from others.  We could never grow all this food on our property, however, my parents have a large yard with fruit trees and a garden.  They do not want to put up all the fruit their land produces so they share with us, and for that I am thankful.  Friday evening we picked plums and apples at their place and they gave us this box of tomatoes from their garden.

We also picked the produce in the above photo from our garden on Friday.  The yellow tomatoes are Persimmon Tomatoes and I think they look like persimmons and taste very good.  The zucchini are from my husband's place of work and the cucumbers are two that were hiding and grew too large to use, they went to the compost pile.  We have lots of cucumbers that are the right size for eating, so we won't miss these two.

When I got home Saturday afternoon it was time to get busy, I made tomato sauce and canned 7 jars of  tomato sauce and 7 jars of whole tomatoes.  I like to have some whole tomatoes for chili and stews.  They can also be quickly made into sauce if I have more whole tomatoes and not enough sauce.

 

I do not know what the acid content is for the tomatoes I used.  I had a variety of tomatoes and I wasn't going to take any chances, so I used the pressure canner.

We've probably all heard scary stories about pressure canners exploding, however, with a canner in good working order there is nothing to fear.  I think that perhaps the newer canners are more trustworthy than those of my grandmother's day, when they had to clean beets off the ceiling.  Just keep an eye on the pressure, adjusting the heat a little more or less to keep it at the right pounds of pressure.  Pressure canning is also faster, tomato sauce takes just 15 minutes at 11 pounds of pressure.  Actually my grandmother (now in her 90s) used her pressure canner a lot.  She even canned meat since they had animals on their farm, but did not have a freezer for a number of years.

The zucchini was shredded and placed in the freezer for making bread this winter.  I put a generous 2 cups in each container, since all my zucchini bread recipes call for two cups and the zucchini shrinks once thawed, as the water is released.

The potatoes cured for ten days, so Sunday evening I placed them in cold-storage.  I weighed them and then divided them up into three boxes; large and medium-sized red, large and medium-sized yukon gold, and one mixed box of small potatoes.  All together there where 60 pounds of potatoes.

Tonight after work I start making juice with the plums and apples.

Real Food Wednesday

Sunday Stills

Rooster vs. Zinnia

Weekly Garden Update

The garden is showing signs that summer won't last forever.  The potatoes and most of the carrots and onions have been dug.  The cucumber and pea leaves are drying up.  Sadly the sunflowers had to be taken out due to disease.

However, the zinnias and green beans are looking very well and the beans are still producing.

I had a few volunteer tomato plants this year, and as it turns out they are all cherry tomatos.  That is ok, they taste very good and I have so many of them I have used them in sauces with good results.

With all the hot humid weather we have had this year the jalapenos have done very well.  I am planning on pickling some of the abundance so that we can use them to make nachos later.

This mess of plants are tomato plants that have grown very large and didn't get tied up as much as they should have been.  There are lots and lots of green tomatoes weighing down the stalks, they will be canned sauce soon.

And finally I planted lettuce and spinach seeds where the potatoes were dug.  The last two years we have had long beautiful autumns, if that holds true this year we will have fresh salad greens as we head toward winter.

Beyond the Backyard Garden

I don't have room in my garden to grow squash or melons so I am thankful for the farmer's market.  Wednesday evening after the board meeting I left work and pedaled the two blocks to the farmer's market, just making it in time before they closed.  We now have shredded zucchini in the freezer for bread this winter.

When I got home I grilled burgers with beef from my husband's family and eggplant, potatoes and cabbage from our garden.  We had the melon from the farmer's market for dessert.  It was a delicious, local, homemade dinner, and with all the produce we are preserving there will be many more.

Last night my husband brought two zucchini home from work.  His employer grows a huge garden with help from the employees and after the produce is picked they place it on a table for the employees to take.  He brought home green beans earlier and said that soon there will be corn.  We really appreciate the corn, because like the squash and melon we don't have room in our garden for corn.  It takes more than our backyard garden to fill the pantry.

The "Root Cellar"

The potatoes have been dug and my garden is starting to look bare with the new large empty patch.  We have Yukon Gold and Dakota Jewel Red in every size, from very large one potato for two people to pearl onion size.  This should be enough potatoes to take us well into the winter, perhaps clear through to spring.

Homegrown potatoes need to be cured before they are stored so that their skins can be toughened up.  Spread them out in a protected area that is 60 to 70 degrees for one to two weeks.  Leave a layer of dirt on the potatoes, this extends their live, and never wash them before storing.  Place in a bin or burlap, but never plastic, then store them in a cold, damp, dark spot.  A root cellar is ideal.  High humidity and a temperature of 38 to 40 degrees is ideal, the temperatures in my cold storage are around 50 degrees, but they still keep fairly well.

This is our "root cellar", a small space in the basement that the prior owner built as a cold-storage room.  It is nothing special to look at, but it does the trick; there are no windows, it is insulated, has shelves and a door.  We store our squash, potatoes, onions, and apples in here.  Potatoes will keep in these conditions for 4 to 6 months.  Last year our garden potatoes kept well into January when we used the last of them up, they were not even soft or sprouting.  Keep an eye on them though, if one potato goes bad, perhaps from a bruised spot, pull it out or the rest will start to go.  Also, be sure not to store potatoes and apples close together or they won't keep well.

Simple Lives Thursday

As Seen in the Backyard

Ant on Asparagus

Kale

Dew Drops

Alyssum

Basil Flowers

Peach Salsa

Oh my, this salsa is so good, you have to try it, it is even better than I anticipated it would be.  It is basically just substituting peaches for tomatoes, which add a light sweetness to the salsa.  The vinegar is in the recipe  so that the salsa can be canned using the water bath method.  I found the recipe and directions for canning here.  I made and canned this salsa Thursday of last week, but haven't had time to write about it until now.  We were gone over the weekend again, it was fun, but being gone over the weekend really puts me in a time pinch for the week, trying to keep up with the garden, housework and preserving while working full time.

The sweet bell peppers, jalapenos and onions in the recipe I was able to gather from my garden.  This has been a good year for peppers for us, we have had hot humid weather and our peppers are larger and ready for picking earlier than they have been other years.

I had enough peaches left over from canning to make 3 batches of peach salsa. The first batch I added the honey as the recipe called for, the next batch I made was a double batch and I left the honey out, it was sweet enough for me without the honey.  I only had one red bell pepper, the other two were green, so the first batch was prettier, but the taste will be the same.

I think this salsa will be very good with chicken or fish, and of course, just right out of the jar with chips.  This winter we will have the taste of summer in these beautiful jars.

This post is listed on Two for Tuesday.