Hot Salsa

I sent Adrienne a text this morning consisting of one word, "Market?". About 6 seconds later there are footsteps on the porch. Apparently we had already made plans a week ago to can salsa today so it was convenient that I was ready to go. The Ballard Sunday Farmers Market is a lovely place with beautiful vegetables and fruits and flowers and musicians and everybody in a great mood, but it is not a fast place to shop. It also does not have all the stuff you need, so including the other stores and the coffee shop we had 3 hours invested before we ever saw the inside of a kitchen.


This salsa recipe came from the wife of a printer who did some work for me a couple of decades ago. Everybody has a great recipe for something, so make sure you get it from them. This recipe will make about 6 pints and if you decide to can it you should put it into hot clean jars and process it in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes.

8-10 large ripe tomatoes, peeled

2 large red onions

2 green peppers

1 red pepper

2 Anaheim peppers

3 Jalapeno peppers

1/2 cup cider vinegar

1 can tomato paste-6 oz

1 T salt

2 cloves garlic chopped

2 t. chili powder

2 T fresh cilantro or 1/2 t. dried (or to taste)

1/2 t. strong oregano (such as Mexican)

To peel the tomatoes drop them into boiling water for 1 minute, promptly remove them and put them into ice water and the skins should slip right off. Unfortunately dicing them will still be tedious. Next chop the peppers and onions. A food processor works fine for this but you will need to do some additional hand chopping to get the long thin slices to a shorter length. Then put all the ingredients into a pan large enough to hold them, such as a stock pot, and bring to a simmer for 30 minutes being ever watchful that it does not burn on the bottom.

Adrienne and I were both singing the blues during the onion chopping portion of this endeavor when our neighbor Sue dropped by and suggested that we put something into our mouths to prop them open, such as a measuring spoon, which would enable us to breathe through our mouths rather than our noses, and pretty soon our onion problems were about gone.
A Big Shout Out to Sue!!

Thanks for tuning in.