Canning Adventures Part 1 - Salsa

Every year my husband plants way too many tomato plants than we could ever need. In past years we have given the excess to neighbors and co-workers but this year we decided to try a few canning recipes for our tomatoes. I've never canned in my life and was surprised at how easy is was.

Easy, yes.

Quick, no.

Canning takes time and a whole lot of it. First there's the prep work. Cleaning, chopping ingredients and sanitizing EVERYTHING. Then there's the cooking time, processing time and my least favorite part, the clean up. It's pretty much a whole day affair.

That said, it's also pretty fun. I have since canned a variety of things that I'll share over the next few weeks but I'll start with my first adventure: salsa.

I went to the store and got a few canning essentials. 

 

A water canner, plenty of jars and a handy little canning cook book.

And this is how it all went down.

Main ingredient: tomatoes picked from the garden. 

I had to blanch like 12 pounds of those bad boys before coring and taking most of the seeds out. Side note, I never blanched anything before and was amazed how fast and easy it was. The skins peeled off without much effort. 

Anyway, time to remove the cores. I didn't have a fancy corer so I improvised and just used a melon baller. You can call me a genius, I don't mind. 

Next up was chopping all the tomatoes, peppers and other ingredients. Ideally, you would do all this with a food processor but I didn't have one at the time so I put my fancy, super sharp knife to work. 

Once everything was chopped, it was time to cook. I started with the tomatoes first. 

Cooked those down a bit before adding all the other stuff. 

Let it all come to a boil before ladeling it into the jars.

Let me pause here. Anyone know why it's called canning and not jarring? You don't use cans and I'm pretty sure the first people to "can" didn't use cans either. 

Anyway, there's a whole process in this that I won't bore you with but basically you have to have your jars heated so they don't break when you put in the hot salsa. Then all the jars go back in the water canner and "process" or continue cooking in boiling water for a certain amount of time. 

Then it's time to take them out and wait to hear the magical "pop" of the lid sealing. It's pretty awesome. 

 

I must also say that I was a little more than disappointed at the amount of salsa 12 pounds of tomatoes made. I was hoping for a pantry full of garden salsa that I could eat on for years but I ended up with a few jars full. Oh well. We had some salsa that didn't fit in the jars so we had a taste test. The flavor was awesome but it just wasn't hot enough.

 

I'm always afraid to make things too hot and ruin it but I'm realizing that even if I double the amount of peppers a recipe calls for, it's still not hot enough. Better luck next time. As for the jars we do have, I have been adding chopped habenero peppers and letting it sit for a day before eating it and it's pretty perfect. 

So, what did I learn from my first adventure in canning? 

One, I need a food processor - which I know have thanks to a dear friend.

Two, I love blanching things!

Three, I should can on the weekend and not try to fit it in during nap time because there's just not enough time.

Four, I need to triple peppers when making salsa to meet my need for heat.

And, lastly, a personal cleaning assistant would be awesome because my kitchen looked like a crime scene with all the juice from working with 12 pounds of tomatoes scattered all over the place.

I don't have a recipe to share because I'm not 100% sold on my version but here's the one I used as a basis for mine: spicy tomato salsa, thanks, @theprairiehen. I just used more tomatoes and fresh peppers instead of dried.