salsa canning: a tutorial for the masses

I have managed to grow exactly four tomatoes this year and the dog ate three of them off the vine when I wasn't looking.  BUT a quick trip over the pass to eastern Washington and I became the proud owner of a box of tomatoes!  

Therefore, and because I'm out of last years supply, it's salsa making time and the Alati house.  All other things must come to a halt, 'cause these buggers are going to rot if I don't get on it.
Ever made salsa? Not rocket science, but you do need tools (neat!).  When you're done, they can all live together in the canner.


Here's what you need:
a tall canner
jar lifter
jars and lids the size you want
lid lifter
canning funnel
I picked up all this stuff years ago at Ace Hardware.






Salsa recipes are all over the place, but my go-to is from Allrecipes.com, called rockin' salsa

Ready for instructions?  Here ya go
boil your jars in the canner, put the water on now, it takes forever.
blanch, peel and seed the tomatoes.  toss in food processor and chop up using the pulse setting (that will chop your product, not beat it into mush).  Pour into a BIG stock pot.  Do the same with all the other ingredients.  bring to a simmer and let it go for a couple of hours.  Shuttle a kid to a friend's house and back, notice the front of your oven is disgusting and go at it with a bamboo skewer and microfiber towel, read a book, whatever.
The salsa will go from this:

To this:

Put the lids to the jars on the stove in a enough water to submerge them and bring to a boil.  let them simmer for 10 minutes or so.  Your jars should be nice and hot (man, I hope you haven't been boiling them all this time, your house is going to be HOT! just keep everything hot).

Take the hot jars out of the hot water bath.  Use a ladle and the canning funnel, fill the jars with your hot salsa, to within about 1/2 inch of the top. 

 use your lid lifter (it's a little magnet on the end of a plastic stick that lifts those hot lids from the hot water), and place a lid on each full jar.  screw on the bands, to just finger tight.  This is important: DO NOT tighten the bands down!  you're just putting them on, but giving the air a way to escape when you process the salsa!

Now, put all those now filled jars of salsa back in the canner, crank up the heat so it's simmering, not boiling like crazy, make sure everybody is covered with water, put on the lid and let it "process"/simmer for about 15 minutes.

Carefully take out the salsa and let the jars cool to room temp.  You'll know you're good to go when none of the jar lids bounce back when you push on the tops.  If the top pushes down, that's the stuff you put in the fridge and eat sooner rather than later.  Bring it to work, people will think think you're the bomb!

Did you get all the times I said HOT there?  It's important to note 'cause you don't want to do this with your toddler helping you.  Filling the jars doesn't take that long (like, maybe 5 minutes), but it IS a hot, potentially messy, process, and you want to do this with your full attention and only risking burning yourself!

This salsa tastes great, and is even better after sitting on the shelf for a while.  You can make it hotter, smokier, whatever, but the process is the same.  People have been canning for years and you should too.  You'll be so proud you did!

Next up, dilled green beans!