Throughout spring and summer we prepared fresh salsa about once a week- sometimes even more.  As fall set in I noticed that we had not been making fresh salsa nearly as much, although we have been making many meals that are naturally complimented by salsa.  We started to miss it. With busy lives and produce seasons changing the desire and convenience of making fresh salsa has slowed down.

We never buy store bought salsa for a few reasons, the first being the fact that I don’t tolerate onions and I have never seen a store bought jar of salsa excluding them (let me know if you know of one!) We consciously try to avoid purchasing pre-packaged food that contain unnecessary ingredients and preservatives, and also because it can get kind of pricey — once you figure out how inexpensive and delicious it is to make your own fresh salsa it just doesn’t seem worth it to buy mass produced versions anymore. Of course there are decent market fresh salsas — but all of which will contain onions, suitable for the majority. A jarred salsa is so convenient and a perfect snack, and since we don’t purchase it from the store and haven’t been making it fresh, we have been deprived. This is why we decided to can our own. We have thought about doing this for a while and now we’re living the dream! We have a full stock of custom salsa in the cabinet! Like fresh salsa there are many “right” ways to do this.  Here is how our first attempt went.

Ingredients : plum tomatoes, bell peppers (green, red, orange, yellow), jalapeños, habeñeros, lime, salt, cilantro.

Supplies needed : canning tools, 5-6 pint jars, large pot for boiling.

Recipe:
8 cups plum tomatoes seeded and diced
2 green peppers
2 yellow peppers
1 red pepper
1 orange pepper
4 fat mild jalapeños
2 habeñeros
5 pieces of garlic
7 table spoons lime
4 teaspoons kosher salt
2 bundles cilantro- 1 heaping cup chopped

Before you start this process make sure you have all of your canning equipment ready (jars with fresh lids, a pot large enough to boil the jars with 2 inches of water over top, and canning tools for lifting the hot jars/lids from the water). Wash your jars with hot water and soap, set aside while you prepare your ingredients. If you have an extremely large pot to boil your jars it may take quite a while to heat up the water — you can set it to warm up at anytime so you’re not in a situation where you are waiting for long.  Fill the pot with enough water to cover the tops of the jars with 2 inches of water.

Prepare all of the ingredients before cooking.  Seed and dice the tomatoes and peppers, pluck the cilantro leaves from the stem and chop finely, crush and mince the garlic.  Once you have chopped everything it is time to cook!

We used a 4 quart pot which would hold up to 8 pints worth of salsa — this batch made 5 1/2 pints for us. Heat up the pot with a splash of olive oil and add your garlic, jalapeños, & habeñeros. Saute for a moment and include the rest of your peppers.

Add tomatoes and simmer for a couple of minutes, it will become more soupy.

Throw in cilantro, lime, & salt to taste. Bring salsa to a full boil for at least 5 minutes.

Remove from heat and cover while you sterilize your jars before canning. Place washed jars in the pot of water to simmer for 5 minutes, do not boil.  Place lids (not the rings) in a separate pot of water to simmer, do not boil. Remove the jars from the water bath with the jar lifters and place on a heat safe surface, we use a wooden cutting board.

Fill your jars with the salsa leaving about a ½ inch of space from the top. Use a funnel to avoid spilling on the jar.  Poke the mixture with a clean utensil to push out any extra air bubbles — we use a chop stick. Wipe around the rim of the jar with a clean towel before closing.

With the magnetic lid lifter place your jar lid and screw the band on with enough force but not too tight. Use the jar lifters to place jars back into the water bath and bring to a rolling boil for at least 5 minutes. Remove jars right side up and place back on to the heat safe surface, allow to rest undisturbed for 24 hours.  Over the next hour you will hear pops from the lids which indicates a successful canning. The following day your jars should be complete. Test that they were canned successfully by lifting the jar by just the sealed lid (remove the screw top), it should be securely attached.

For more instructions and information on canning please refer to Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving or other sources with more experience; we are amateurs.

The salsa turned out to be delicious, though fresh is still better, but now we have enough salsa to last us several weeks, maybe even months! It took a little time to do, but if you’re like me it was a fun activity and we saved a lot of money by doing it. We listed out the cost of this particular salsa below, to make 5+ pints of salsa it cost us just under $9.00! I’d say that’s pretty good, an average pint of salsa at the grocery store would cost around $5.00 which means we saved over $15.00 and we are glad to know exactly how it was made and processed.

Cost :
tomatoes- $3.30
bell peppers- $2.94
cilantro- $1.10
jalapeño- $0.38
lime- $0.25
habeñero- $0.18
garlic- $0.07
salt- $0.01

total cost $8.95 for 5 pints of fresh custom salsa.

Sweet, spicy, sour, & salty.
Mango, chili, lime, & salt.

Mango is an extremely tasty fruit on it’s own but by adding a few simple flavors you create a complex taste that is sure to excite you.

Ingredients :: mango, cayenne powder/chili powder, lime, kosher salt.

There are a lot of “right” ways to cut a mango; I have two methods that I use regularly.  The first method is straightforward and obvious.  Use a paring knife to remove the skin, avoid cutting off too much meat.  Start by cutting off a small piece from one of the long ends, turn it on that side to rest tall and begin to slice off the skin.  At the beginning I like to hold it in my hand, but towards the end I like to rest it on the flat spot because sometimes the mango can get very slippery to hold, this helps prevent you from dropping it or squeezing it too much.  Once the skin is removed, make the first cut from the top of the mango along side of the seed.  The seed/pit is in the center of the mango, long and ovular about ¾ of an inch thick, you want to try to get as close the seed as possible in order to get the most meat.  Repeat and cut from the other side.  You’ll be left with two nice hunks of mango meat, cut whatever is left from the shorter side and finish by cutting the pieces to the desired size.

The second method is a little more fun and beautiful looking.

Turn the mango on it’s side to make it tall, cut two pieces from each side of the seed.  Slice a grid into the mango piece without cutting through the skin.  Flip the  skin of the mango to push the meat forward creating a “hedgehog” shape. Use a paring knife or your fingers to remove the pieces. You can also eat the mango directly off the skin.

once you have your bowl of sweet add your sour, spice, and salt to taste!  I usually cut up 2 mangoes, 1 lime, and add the salt and cayenne a little at a time until it’s just right.  stir up and enjoy.  This is one of my absolute favorite flavor combinations!

I can’t believe it took me this long to experiment with tomatillos!   Seriously, I have always loved salsa verde and have wanted to try making it for a long time.  Something about the mysteriously wrapped green tomato has always been intriguing to me but I was never exactly sure how to use them. I would eye them at the grocery store every time and pass them by instead of picking them up.   But this past trip to the market was different, we finally brought tomatillos home to use!

It’s possible that i might be a little too excited about these green relatives of the tomato, there have been recent reports of me talking in my sleep about them! “Tomatillos are so beautiful, they’re a real treat!”  – it’s true whether i’m awake or asleep i do feel like they are a beautiful treat.  Making our first tomatillo sauce was so much fun, full of surprises, and super easy!

Because this was the first time we have ever used tomatillos I can’t claim to know the best way to make a salsa verde.  However, without using a recipe it turned out absolutely delicious anyway.  As usual, improv salsa was a great success!  I cannot wait to do it again….

Ingredients used…
About 10 medium tomatillos
About 20 sprigs of cilantro leaves
3 jalapeños chopped with seeds
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
1-2 cloves crushed garlic
juice of 2 limes
kosher salt to taste

el ranchero chips

I did a little research to see how other people make this sauce; almost everyone said that they roasted the tomatillos before blending.  I bet it’s not difficult to do and I’m sure it’s delicious, but roasting is for next time, this time I chose to boil them instead.

When I unwrapped the papery shell from the tomatillos I noticed that they were very sticky and greasy, so I washed them before blanching.  Place tomatillos in a pot of water, bring to a boil for about 5 minutes.  I was surprised to find that the color changed so much once they heated up.  It made a lot of sense because it resembled the color I’m more use to seeing in a salsa verde.  I used the color change as an indicator of when they were cooked enough.   Strain the water and let them cool while you prepare the other ingredients.

Collect the cilantro leaves from the sprigs, skip this step if you’re lazy and blend the whole stem.  Cut jalapeños and crush garlic.   3 Jalapenos made it very spicy, so beware, include less seeds if you prefer it to be less spicy. Sautee garlic and jalapeños in oil to mellow flavor.  Set aside.

Remove stem base from the blanched tomatillos with a knife.  Place all other parts (seeds, juice, and skin) in a blender. Add cilantro, jalapeno, & garlic. Squeeze lime juice in to the mix and blend.  Add salt to taste and enjoy with El Ranchero chips or add it to any meal for an extra kick!

Salsa is one of the most obvious and easy snacks, especially when you can just pour it out of a jar or pick up a fresh batch from your local grocer.  But wait!  That salsa has onions in it! This situation comes up frequently; almost all salsas and guacamole contain onions, lots of fresh onions (the worst). Bummer.  Have no fear, making your own salsa can be easy and will most certainly be fresher and taste better.   We make a fresh salsa at least once a week. The recipe always varies slightly and is never disappointing.  It’s actually much cheaper than buying a jar of salsa and you end up with a lot more if you make it yourself.  You really can’t lose with this one.  Here is an idea on how to make your own….

In this salsa we used :: 4 tomatoes, 1 medium cucumber, 1 yellow pepper & 1 red pepper, jalapeño, limes, salt, cilantro, garlic, and NO onions.  Looks can be deceiving; the cucumber kind of looks like onion for those who are expecting it ;)

Dice up all of your ingredients into small bits. Combine tomato, cucumber, peppers, & cilantro. Then add your flavor enhancers to taste, jalapeño, garlic, salt & lime.  Enjoy this refreshing snack.