Some years ago we arrived at my husband's daughter's house for the Labor Day weekend to find boxes of tomatoes, various peppers, and onions, accompanied by premeasured spices. "Nancy," said my DIL, "I know you love to cook. Our cousin has a bumper crop in his garden, and he brought over stuff to make salsa, according to his recipe. Want to help?" We had to go buy a few supplies: large roasting pans to cook the stuff; canning supplies; cheap white vinegar; tomato paste; gloves to handle the hot peppers. We had a lot of washing and chopping and conversation as the work went along, and we had help as friends dropped by and got involved. The results were so good that the next year, when no free bumper crop materialized, we went to the local farmer's market and got the necessary supplies. It's become an annual tradition. We can quarts of the stuff, in various jar sizes, for our families and friends. There are more pictures of the event in the What Are You Preserving, and How Are You Doing It? topic.
This is a very forgiving recipe as far as proportions go. Over the years we've experimented with adding more or different hot peppers, or more onions (or both). We're careful to label the "extra hot" jars. We have learned that the style of cooking it down matters. This salsa is cooked down in a large shallow roasting pan, in the oven. When we tried it over the stove top in a stockpot, the surface area was too small for the salsa to cook down efficiently; it took a long time and a lot of stirring to get more or less the consistency that came without effort in the oven. Last year I learned that if you cook it down too long you can end up with a rather sweet "tomato jam"...still good, but thicker and sweeter than we usually like.
Oh, one final note: this is one of the very few times I use the dreaded green bell pepper. Can I taste it in the final result? Not that I can tell. Does it help with the texture and color? Yes.
Lauri's Cousin's Garden Salsa See note below!
1 c chopped green pepper
1/2 c chopped jalapeno pepper
2 c white vinegar
12 oz can tomato paste
2 tsp chili powder
2 tsp black pepper
3 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp cumin
1/2 c sugar
1/4 c canning salt
Combine all ingredients. Bake at 350F for 2 hours, uncovered, stirring occasionally. May add cornstarch to thicken after baking for 2 hours, if necessary.
Load in clean canning jars, observing the usual requirements for sanitation and head space. Process in water bath for 20 minutes.
Makes about 10 pints.
The salsa in the roasting pan, before mixing, then after roasting:
Some of the bounty:
This sight makes us feel very good about our work!
Note: the recipe as originally posted omits 16 c tomatoes (cubed) and 4 c chopped onions. The recipe is forgiving, but not THAT forgiving. I've corrected it in a follow-up post.
