Monday, August 23, 2010

I Love the Smell of Salsa in the Morning

This past week I've been canning salsa like crazy. We ran out of our last jar of home canned salsa sometime in March and really, nothing we've bought since then has measured up in any way, shape, or form. We'd be open to suggestions--as of yet we've found nothing we like as much as our own canned salsa.

All these recipes can be found in the Ball® Complete Book to Home Preserving. Here are the 3 recipes I used for these batches.



Carrot Pepper Salsa (left), pg. 211

It appears this salsa will have a more mild flavor based on the recipe. This is my first year to try this one. We'll see how it goes. My kids think it is CRAZY to put carrots into a salsa, but I keep reminding them that you don't know if you'll like it unless you try it. It could be our new favorite, who knows. This recipe had you cook down the salsa for an hour, and even though I did that I still ended up with more jars than they said it would yield.

Note: I did try a bit that was leftover in the pan and it has a sweet taste to it--the brown sugar in it--but I liked it.

Jalapeño Salsa (middle), pg. 209

This recipe can also be found in the Ball Blue Book.

This is the recipe that I use most often--it has some serious KICK!! which is the way the majority of us like it. Equal ratio of tomatoes to jalapeños. Oh yeah! Normally when I double the recipe I do not double the jalapeños, however. Instead I double it by going 1/2 jalapeños and 1/2 green peppers. (i.e. 3 c. each instead of 6 c. jalapeños.)

Fresh Vegetable Salsa (right), pg. 203

I'm guessing that this one will be a middle of the road salsa as far as the "kick" factor goes. This one you cook down for 30 minutes before canning. Also my first year to try this recipe.

The book recommends:
For optimum flavor let your jars sit 3-4 weeks before opening them to allow the salsa flavors to "mellow and blend".

O.K. I don't know if we can realistically wait that long....but, I guess we'll eat this fresh salsa in the meantime.

7 comments:

  1. Yep, it's that time of year again. I just stuck my tomatoes in the freezer until I could get to them. Kids go to school tomorrow, so maybe this week...

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  2. Do you use the water bath canner to can the salsa? I don't have a pressure canner, but I have heard you can get away with the water bath for tomatoes and salsa.

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  3. The salsa looks really good. Would love some right now.....even if it is breakfast time! =) We love salsa and have even thought about making some ourselves. Let me ask you a question.....Do you put them in a waterbath after cooking them or can you just put them in the jars after cooking? New to canning. =)

    Thanks for sharing.
    Angie

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  4. Angie and Steph--
    You need to water bath the salsa--usually 15-20 minutes for pints. If you don't have a water bath canner you can usually find them for $15 or less. Or if you get lucky and find one at a garage sale or thrift store--$3-5

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  5. Is that 15-20 water bath for all salsa? My husband makes a wonderful fresh salsa that will keep in the fridge for about 2 weeks. We would love to give to others, but afraid of it spoiling if they don't keep it in the fridge.

    blessings,
    jilly

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  6. Many "fresh" salsas don't can very well. We've tried some recipes before and then don't like them as well. You could try it, but it also depends on what ingredients you have in your recipe. Beans, and corn typically need to be pressure canned.

    Your better option may be to try and freeze it.

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  7. Oh thanks so much for that tip. We are going to try and freeze the salsa this time.

    He uses lots of peppers and can tomatoes, and some other stuff I'm not allow to know;-) No beans or corn.

    blessings,
    jilly

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