{"id":888,"date":"2010-09-25T13:56:15","date_gmt":"2010-09-25T20:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/?p=888"},"modified":"2013-11-12T08:57:20","modified_gmt":"2013-11-12T16:57:20","slug":"september-salsa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/2010\/09\/25\/september-salsa\/","title":{"rendered":"September Salsa for Canning"},"content":{"rendered":"

September means tomatoes here in California.\u00a0 They’re still green on my plants but Greenstring Farm<\/a> in Petaluma, has bushels of them.\u00a0 Biodynamically (and organically) grown heirlooms of all possible types, for $1\/lb.\u00a0 I bought Golden Romas and tomatillos (plus a few extras for fresh eating) and made salsa. I’ve made fresh salsa before.\u00a0 It’s pretty easy: chop tomatoes, onion, cilantro, add lemon or lime juice and some heat.\u00a0 But this was my first cooked salsa, and my first ever attempt at canning (unless you count a few thank-god-I-didn’t-kill-anyone sessions in the 90’s).\u00a0 When you can, it’s not just about making something delicious.\u00a0 Or something that can take the extra cooking time.\u00a0 You have to make it safe too. Some canning resources evoke more fear than longing.\u00a0 Don’t dare change a single teaspoon of this recipe or\u00a0 you will all die!\u00a0 Where others are more laissez faire.\u00a0 Sure, do whatever you want, in any jars you can find, just heat it enough for the lids to stick.\u00a0 My aim was for something a bit more practical. I started with a basic canned salsa recipe that’s all over the web.\u00a0 Here’s the official “government” version<\/a>.\u00a0 And here’s a home canner’s version<\/a> with lots of pictures.\u00a0 And, yes, I altered it.\u00a0 But I’m not too worried.\u00a0 To can safely in a water bath canner, the pH of your food needs to be no greater than 4.6.\u00a0 Most tomatoes are below that and a few are slightly above.\u00a0 But add in a large amount of vinegar (pH of 2.4-3.4; apple cider vinegar 3.1) or lemon\/lime juice (pH of 2-2.4) as this recipe calls for, and you’re golden.\u00a0 For more details, read the uber cautious government study on salsa<\/a>.\u00a0 Their basic safe recipe is 200 g tomatoes, an equal amount of onions and peppers, and 1\/4 cup lemon juice, per pint of finished product.\u00a0 I have pH paper but it doesn’t register below 5.5.\u00a0 I checked my salsa when it was on the stove with all the ingredients except for the vinegar and lime juice.\u00a0 The pH was less than 5.5.<\/p>\n

\"Tomato<\/a>

Tomato box<\/p><\/div>\n

Ingredients:<\/h2>\n

Golden Roma tomatoes and tomatillos, about 8lbs total
\nFresh peppers to taste (I used 1 medium-hot pepper about 2×3″ to get mild heat)
\n2 large white onions
\n2 tsp sea salt
\n1 tsp black pepper (didn’t measure but did 30 turns of the grinder)
\n2 tsp cumin seeds
\n1.5 TB fresh oregano
\n1\/2 bunch fresh cilantro
\nFresh lime juice (used 7 limes which came to just under a cup)
\nApple cider vinegar to bring acid liquid total to 2.5 cups<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Preparing the Equipment:<\/h2>\n

Fill your canner with the approximate amount of water you’ll need to put in all the jars and cover them by an inch, cover it, and get it boiling.\u00a0 It can take a long time to boil this much water, so it’s best to start it early then just keep it warm. Wash jars and lids. Put lids into a pan of water and bring to a boil then keep warm. Put jars into a 200*F oven.\u00a0 This tip was pure genius!\u00a0 All the other instructions I read say to boil the jars and that means you have no room on the stove, have your canning pot in use (or have to use two), and the jars are wet.\u00a0 With the oven they were out of the way and dry.<\/p>\n

Making the Salsa:<\/h2>\n
\"Seeding<\/a>

Seeding golden roma tomatoes<\/p><\/div>\n

Peel and quarter the onions and put through shredder of food processor. Wash tomatoes and remove any bad spots.\u00a0 Cut in half lengthwise and seed (just stick your fingers in there and push the seeds into a bowl, don’t worry about being perfect).\u00a0 Set aside seeds\/juice for another use (I froze them for soup). I considered following everyone’s advice and peeling the tomatoes, but their skin is thinner than most and I really really didn’t want to.\u00a0 I’m told that regular tomato skins get tough if left in.\u00a0 To peel, immerse tomatoes for 30-45 seconds in a pot of boiling water.\u00a0 Immediately place in to ice water.\u00a0 The skins should come right off. Wash tomatillos and remove any bad spots.\u00a0 Put in oven to roast (I should have cut them in half first and put them in a well-heated oven, but I just put them whole into the 200*F oven that was holding the jars).\u00a0 You do not need to peel or seed tomatillos.\u00a0 Feel free to make the recipe with just tomatoes or just tomatillos. Run tomatoes and tomatillos through food processor shredder. In the empty food processor, with the regular blade, put all tomato and onion scraps that didn’t shred plus the seasonings and herbs and the peppers you’re using, washed with stem and seeds removed.\u00a0 Mince well. Put everything into a pot, along with the acid liquid.\u00a0 Bring to a simmer.\u00a0 Apparently this is all that is needed for safety and easy canning.\u00a0 The recipe I had says to cook it for half an hour.\u00a0 I wasn’t going to but it was very liquidy.\u00a0 Since my sauce was yellow and green, I didn’t want to add the recommended (red) tomato paste. So I did cook it down some, but it’s still pretty liquid.<\/p>\n

\"Salsa<\/a>

Salsa ready for canning<\/p><\/div>\n

Filling the Jars:<\/h2>\n

Keep the salsa hot while you’re filling.\u00a0 Take the jars out of the oven and the lids out of the pot of hot water right before you need them so they don’t cool too much. I used an 8oz ladle (same size as the jars) into a canning funnel.\u00a0 I couldn’t find my real canning funnel so I used a make-shift one, the cut off top of a gallon plastic jug (the sturdy plastic).<\/p>\n

\"Filling<\/a>

Filling jars with salsa<\/p><\/div>\n

Processing the Jars:<\/h2>\n

Wipe any spills off the rims, put the rubber rings on the plastic lids (I use Tattler BPA-free lids<\/a>), and put the metal rings on loosely.\u00a0 Tighten ring with finger pushing down on the lid.\u00a0 Then loosen lid 1\/4″.\u00a0 (If you’re using Ball lids, follow the directions on the box.) I don’t own a canning rack so I put extra canning rings on the bottom of the pot and then layered them on top of the first layer of jars. They were not all perfectly not touching each other but I’ve seen other canning folks do this without any center racks, so I’m not worried. I did a double layer of jars (which left some for a second processing session, oh well). Have the water at a boil before adding jars.\u00a0 Adjust water so it is at least 1″ over the top of the lids.\u00a0 Bring back to a boil then set a timer for 15 minutes.\u00a0 Remove finished jars with to a rack to cool (my jar lifter was a great investment!). Tighten the lids.\u00a0 You don’t do this with Ball lids, just with Tattler.\u00a0 I forgot to with the salsa, but it all sealed just fine.\u00a0 Tattler lids do not ping.\u00a0 There are no sounds at all with them. When jars are cool (the next day), remove the rings and make sure the lids are secure.\u00a0 Label and store.<\/p>\n

How Much did I Make?<\/h2>\n

The recipe I based mine on called for 15 lbs of tomatoes and makes around 8 pints.\u00a0 I only had 8 lbs of tomatoes and tomatillos and I cooked my salsa down as long as the other recipe does.\u00a0 I thought I’d get 5 pints or so.\u00a0 Somehow I ended up with 12!\u00a0 (You may notice that the original recipe called for 2 cups of acid liquid but I used 2.5 cups.\u00a0 That was because I realized at that point I had more salsa than expected so added some extra just in case.) I canned 2 pint jars and 18 half pint jars and had a full pint for the fridge.<\/p>\n

\"Salsa<\/a>

Salsa canned, labeled, and in the pantry<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

September means tomatoes here in California.\u00a0 They’re still green on my plants but Greenstring Farm in Petaluma, has bushels of them.\u00a0 Biodynamically (and organically) grown heirlooms of all possible types, for $1\/lb.\u00a0 I bought Golden Romas and tomatillos (plus a few extras for fresh eating) and made salsa. I’ve made fresh salsa before.\u00a0 It’s pretty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26,3,14],"tags":[129,7,6,8,81,11,77,5,12],"class_list":["post-888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-recipes","category-spreads-dips","tag-canning","tag-dairy-free","tag-egg-free","tag-gluten-free","tag-latin-food","tag-lowcarb","tag-photos-food","tag-vegan","tag-vegetarian"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=888"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1102,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888\/revisions\/1102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}