Carolyn's Salsa

I have never met Carolyn Walsh, but I will tell you she makes the best salsa! My husband and the co-author of the two books they wrote, Jim Draeger, stopped at her house to spend the night while they were researching one of their books (Carolyn is Jim's sister). My husband came home with a couple of jars of her salsa, and I was determined to make it. She thankfully gave me the recipe, and I have been given permission to share it! In her honor, our house salsa is 'Carolyn's Salsa'. It is the only thing I hot water can, that is how much we love it!

It all starts with the tomatoes. The tomatoes you see above came from our local CSA Crossroads Community Farm. They came in two 5/9 bushel boxes. One box I will use for the salsa, the other box will be for freezing. Honestly, I planned to hot water can all the tomatoes in some form, but ran out of time and found the freezer space for bags of chopped up tomatoes.

I decided to break up the canning into 2 days as I am not a morning person and did not want to work from sun up until midnight to get this all done in one day. Between getting the tomatoes prepped and everything else ready, making the salsa and doing the actual canning, it took me about 10 hours total. By all means, feel free to do it in one day if you like.

Day 1:

I cleaned up all the tomatoes, cut off the core end and x'ed the blossom end. 

I dunked them in simmering water for 1-2 minutes until the skin started to peel away.

This is what they should look like after you carefully take them out of the water with a slotted spoon. I put them on a cookie sheets to cool down. Some recipes say to put them in boiling water for 30 seconds to 1 minute, then dunk them in cold water to make the skin start to peel off. I find this step unnecessary. By cooking a little longer, the skin comes off on its own. I usually watch them closely, and when I start to see the first peels starting to pull off the tomatoes, that is when I start taking them out.
I should also note that if you don't mind the peels in your salsa, you can completely skip this step (you just need to cut off the tops and chop them up). I take the peels off for my husband who I love so much that I will do this extra step for him!

For my recipe I found that one 5/9 bushel box was plenty for my salsa. I peeled them, chopped them and stuck them in covered bowls in the refrigerator for the next day. I had an additional box and no time to can them. So I pulled off the skins like I did for the salsa, chopped up the tomatoes, and put them in BPA-free quart size freezer bags. I weighed them out to be approximately 28 ounces, which is what the large cans of tomatoes are at the grocery store. Though I am a big fan of just cutting off the ends, halving them and throwing them in freezer bags (unpeeled), this way does save space (and my freezer is starting to fill up with vegetables).

Day 2:

I pulled out my favorite canning book and read the section on how to can. Even though I am going to give you a recipe (that is not in the book), I highly recommend the 'Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving' seen below as a guide. Every year I need to look at it to remind myself how to can properly. It also has some great recipes, if you decide you love to can. 

Here it is! I would describe this salsa as a little sweet and a little spicy, and completely delicious!

Carolyn's Salsa

I have doubled the original recipe. You can obviously cut the recipe in half again. 

This made (2) quart jars, (14) pint jars and (6) 1/2 pint jars. 

Ingredients:

-1 Cup diced hot peppers (I remove the seeds from half of them, you could leave them or remove all of them depending on how hot you like your salsa)

-6 Cups diced bell peppers (I like to use red peppers)

-8 Cups diced white or yellow onion

-20 Cloves garlic, minced

-28 Cups Roma tomatoes 

-36 Ounces tomato paste

-3 Cups apple cider vinegar

-4 Teaspoons Oregano

-4 Tablespoons Chili powder

-4 Tablespoons Cumin

-4 Tablespoons Salt

Directions:

-Blanch and peel tomatoes (this I did on day 1).

-Combine onions, both kinds of peppers, garlic and tomatoes in a large kettle (I believe mine is a 12 quart).

-Mix together the vinegar, oregano, chili powder, cumin and salt in a bowl, then mix into the vegetables in the large kettle.

-Simmer for 1 hour. 

-Add tomato paste and simmer on low for 20 minutes, stir often.

-Put in clean jars and add boiled lids. Put in hot water bath with water covering jars.

-Boil for 20 minutes, then turn off heat and take off lid and let the jars sit in the water for 5 minutes.

-Remove carefully so as not to tip the jars and store in a draft free area for 24 hours (you can lightly cover with a dish towel).

-After 24 hours check to make sure seal is good. 

-Store for up to 1 year.

Note: If this is your first time canning, PLEASE buy a canning guide for more details, above is just the basics, I still look at my Ball canning guide for more info.  

All the vegetables in the large stock pot ready to go!

The spices and vinegar added.

The salsa canned and ready to be stored.

The photo below makes me so happy! As I was canning this year I realized I was using some of my Grandma Leona's old canning jars. She gave them all to me about 5 years ago as she can no longer can. She used to have a huge garden, plus they lived on a farm. She used to can everything! I knew these were her cans because I have only purchased the Ball brand, and you can faintly see the Kerr on these. Though the salsa would be too spicy for her, I know she will be happy when I tell her I have used her old jars!