Canned Salsa Recipe

Hello Everyone! :)

As dinner cooks, (roasted chicken, rice, and peas) I figured I'd take advantage of some wonderful weather we're having in Texas and sit out in my backyard and blog. The dogs are happily chewing on a log, which was found under the fence from the previous house owners. And the DH is getting ready for his trip this week. 

This weekend was very eventful. My birthday is on Wednesday, so my parents asked me where I'd like to go for my birthday dinner. I've been dying to go to the food trucks that are off South Congress in Austin, where I've heard amazing things about them. So that's what we did! I ended up going to The Mighty Cone (Everything's served in a cone, which is quite inconvenient if you're not sitting at one of their tables with the cone holders built into the middle....) But, needless to say lunch was QUITE amazing! I got the chicken and avocado with the chili-dusted fries and a water (it was like 95 degrees this weekend!) And then we finished it off with cupcakes from Hey Cupcake! Which were DELICIOUS!!

Anyways, enough about that. 

Another thing I did was canned salsa! I've canned other things, like banana peppers and apple butter, but I've never canned salsa. I was very excited to get started. I would have canned this salsa a while ago, but I had to wait for my tomatoes to turn red in my garden. 

When my DH and I finally moved into our house, I knew I wanted to start a garden. So, my wonderful father came over and helped me build some garden boxes. Since I live in Texas the soil is very rocky and hard to plant in, so I decided to just make some garden boxes. It was really easy.. and I probably could have done it without my dad, but it was fun to spend some time with him. My boxes turned out to be 4x6 and I have two. If you have a saw and a screw driver, you can make them. I can post how at another time. Here's what the boxes looked like after I planted them in March. 

I planted a lot in the two boxes. My original plan was to make one for herbs and the other one for vegetables. But what really happened was that one became full of tomatoes and the other one peppers and a leek plant (I thought it was chives so I could plant with my tomatoes and it would keep pests away).

And here's my garden today.

(Left Box)

(Some of the Right Box)

On to the salsa!

Recipe (Adapted from Here):

Makes 4 1-Pint jars

15 tomatoes of all different types. (This is a rough guess, I did not count mine.)

2 large or 3 medium onions

10 tsp garlic

8-10 jalapenos (mine turned out to be mild, in the beginning it was hot, but after it sat it mild'd out)

2 large bell peppers

1 bunch of cilantro

1 Tbl cumin (I don't like much cumin in my recipes, so I dropped this from 1/8 cup to 1 Tbl.. okay, I REALLY don't like cumin!)

1 can tomato paste

Pickling Salt

1 Tbl lime juice for every jar, so 4 Tbl. (I used three limes and still had some left over.

1. Boil your jars for 1 minute and the lids/rings for 5 minutes.

2. The recipe on the website says to blanch and peel the tomatoes, put them in a strainer with some pickling salt and let them strain for several hours. I completely missed this step and did not peel my tomatoes, nor did I put salt in them. If you want to blanch and peel your tomatoes, go ahead.

3. Chop your tomatoes, put them in a strainer and let them strain for several hours in a cool place-- NOT YOUR FRIDGE. This will stop them from draining the liquid out! You'll still have enough liquid. But remember, I did not put salt in my tomatoes when I strained them.. you'll get more liquid out if you do that. Mine turned out great though! (It could have used some salt, but I'll just mix it in the jars when I open them!)

4. Chop your jalapenos-- PLEASE use a glove for this or your hands will be burning and if you get it into your eye, ouch! Invest in gloves!-- Chop the onions and bell peppers too.

5. Wash the cilantro and chop that. I put mine into my food processor and pulsed it until it was small. Then I put my jalapenos, green pepper, and onion in and pulsed a few times to get it incorporated.

6. Take the tomato paste and mix it with the tomatoes. 

7. Mix everything, BUT THE LIME JUICE, together. The recipe said to boil the salsa, I did not. After the salsa is mixed, put into the canning jars, put 1 Tbl lime juice on the top of the salsa in each jar. Wipe the glass at the top off and put the lid/ring on-- DO NOT over tighten the ring, it will cause the jars not to vacuum seal themselves.

8. Put them in boiling water for 20 minutes. This is the processing time. If your jars do not seal, when they come out of the water, try pushing the seal down. Sometimes it just needs a little help.

9. Keep them upright for at least 24 hours, then put them in the back of your pantry until you need some salsa!

I would highly recommend buying this canning kit from Wal-mart. (Although I hate Wal-mart.. sometimes they do have the best priced items.) It has a funnel, a measuring tool, a magnetic tool, and a tool to help you lift the jars out of the boiling water.

Here's my jars!!

And last, I wanted to show you what my DH got me for my birthday! He spent all day putting it together! I can't wait to use it!

Have a wonderful week! :) 

And, May the odds be ever in your favor!