Salsa

In the library last week, I noticed Ball's Complete Book of Home Preserving on the new book shelf. Turns out, it isn't actually a new book, it's just new to my library. Oh, my, am I glad I spotted it and brought it home.

This is shaping up to be one of the best years for tomatoes we've had in a long time. I usually can my tomatoes after we've sauced them with the occasional few jars of peeled, diced tomatoes thrown in. But since we have a cool gadget (it isn't this one, but it's similar) for easily making tomatoes into sauce, I seldom feel a need to scald and peel them.

That may be changing.

I tried the Fresh Vegetable Salsa from the book. I've never made salsa before because, well, I have this cool gizmo so saucing is easiest...and anyhow, my best friend gives us a lot of her homemade salsa every year so I've never been terribly motivated to make my own. Cinda, I never fully realized how much chopping is involved in making salsa. I'll never take it for granted again.

I tried the recipe within a couple days of checking out the book and made 15 pints of salsa from our garden produce. A few days ago, Julianne used one of the pints on top of chicken enchiladas (I'm not a fan of enchilada sauce so we use salsa instead). We loved the new salsa enough that we decided to purchase more jalapenos from the farm stand and make more.

Somehow, I ended up with more than a stockpot full. Clarence suggested using my roaster, which I thought was brilliant so I'd have enough room to mix it well. Hmm, that almost didn't work either.

I ended up with almost 27 more pints of salsa, plus a quart of tomato sauce from the tomatoes we had peeled but didn't need for the salsa.

I may not have a single jar of green beans canned for this winter, but I think we're set for salsa. Maybe.