I don't know about you, but I'm still a victim to the Westernized eating habits that I grew up with. Example? I crave cheesy poofs all. the. time. That's about the only truly unhealthy thing I crave though. Most often, I want classic snack food like cheese and crackers, pretzels and mustard, granola and yogurt, and above all... nachos. I don't mean the gross kind you get at the skating rink or elementary school cafeterias. I'm talking about the expensive blue corn tortilla chips coated in grated, melted sharp cheddar, and dipped in not-too-spicy salsa and sour cream. Oh, and to certain family members out there who might remember a certain childhood aversion to sour cream? I love the stuff now. In fact, on a salsa making binge last week, I decided to run to the store for tortilla chips and cheese, got home, and realized I had forgotten the stuff. I contemplated crying.
So anyway, I try my hardest to limit what we buy at the grocery store. During the summer, it's hardly anything... butter, spices, flour, the rare bag of cheesy poofs. But during the winter if you don't stock up enough you get sick of soup and bread. That's why I made an ungodly amount of salsa this year.
This recipe is not really a recipe, but I've tried to make it appear like one. Of course you need the basics, but the quantities are up to you. Be creative. Oh, and wear gloves when you chop the jalapenos. I'm serious. The first time I ever made salsa I had none and the burn was unbearable. It got up my fingernails. NOTHING worked. Milk? No. Butter? No. And the worst part was that we had company and I couldn't curl up in a ball on the couch and whimper. So please, take that small precaution. Use a different cutting board, a different knife, scrub everything with your gloves on, and scrub the gloves before you take them off.
Ingredients:
- one bushel of tomatoes
- two dozen ripe peaches
- 5-6 jalepenos
- 6 onions
- one head of garlic
- 6 green bell peppers
- two bunches of cilantro
- salt
- pepper
- hot pepper flakes (if you like it more spicy)
- lemons (about 1/4 cup of juice comes from each squeezed lemon)
Instructions:
1. Cut the cores from your tomatoes. You don't need to go all the way through to the bottom, just cut out the part where the stem is.
2. Meanwhile, get a pot of water boiling and a large bowl with lots of ice inside and some cold water. (Don't use all of your ice at once... you'll probably need to add more four or five times as you're working.)
3. Dunk the tomatoes carefully in the water. I'd do about 5-6 at a time. Let them sit for just under a minute and them take them out with a straining spoon. I use one that's for frying, so I can get 3-4 tomatoes at once.
4. Immediately dunk them into the ice water.
5. The skins should slide off easily with your hands. Place the skinned tomatoes in another bowl to be seeded once they're not so hot. This job is so much easier with two people.
6. After all of the skins are off, you can turn the stove off and get to work de-seeding. You'll easily catch on to the rhythm if you've never done this work before. The seeds are all in little pockets around the sides of the tomatoes, so I use my thumbs to puncture and scoop, puncture and scoop. Don't worry if the tomatoes rip apart. It doesn't matter. Try to get most, if not all, of the seeds out. They make the salsa slightly bitter.
7. After the seeds are out, you'll notice there is a layer of tomato juice in the bowl with the de-seeded tomatoes. To make things move along a little faster, I take a very fine mesh strainer and push the tomatoes through, squeezing out the juice. (You can save this juice and boil it down for a couple hours if you want.)
8. By now, your tomatoes are probably ripped into smaller chunks. Put the strained ones in very large pot.
9. Add pitted, chopped (or ripped) peaches.
10. Let the tomatoes and peaches simmer on low for a few hours, until most of the juice has bubbled off and it's a good salsa consistency.
10. Add the diced onions, garlic, peppers, and finally the jalapenos. I take the seeds out of the jalapenos, by the way. Otherwise it's way too hot for my taste.
11. Add the chopped cilantro, salt, and pepper, and red pepper flakes if you want to make it more spicy.
12. Let everything simmer until all of the spices are infused and it's all very hot.
13. Pour into sterilized jars, leaving one inch headspace from the rim, place the cans into your pressure cooker, stabilize them with dishtowels so they can't rattle, and fill the pot with water half-way up the jars. Lock the lid onto the pot, turn the stove on high.
14. When the pressure gauge reads 15 psi, set your timer for 30 minutes if you made pints, 40 if you made quarts. This might be a little excessive as far at time goes, but I like to be safe.
Note: These times are for altitudes of 1-1,000 feet. If you live above that, comment and I will help you figure out how long to process.
15. When time is up, turn off the stove and let the pressure cooker sit there until the gauge reads zero. Then you can remove the lid. I use a jar grabber (newly purchased this year, woo!) to take the jars out. Sit them on a heat-safe counter overnight or until all of the lids pop down. If a lid does not pop, place it in the fridge immediately and you can still use it within a few weeks.
Posts
