My Best In Show, Spicy Tomato Salsa!

Hello Everyone,

I won Best In Show, in the Western Idaho State Fair, for the first time in canning this year! I made a Spicy Tomato Salsa recipe from the Ball Blue book of canning and preserving! I can’t tell you how much that meant to me! I put in a lot of hours, cleaning jars, peeling, and chopping. I ended up making 7 pints and 1 half-pint, which I just put in the refrigerator to eat! When you enter salsa at the fair you have to include the recipe. If you want your canned products to win in the fair I highly recommend using the Ball books or the USDA canning book, they have so many wonderful recipes, and helpful tips for canning. Also for safety reasons it is not ok to just make up ANY recipe and can it! I bought a 35lb box of Roma tomatoes from Bountiful Baskets one weekend and at first I didn’t know what I was going to make with all of them. I looked up this salsa recipe and thought that’s it! I also made a seasoned tomato sauce, which didn’t place, because I put the wrong processing time on the label! I know I followed the directions to the Tl!! The judge wrote on the back of the tag “Needs longer processing time for our altitude”! That’s what I get for making labels last-minute!!! HA!!! Oh well maybe next year!! The tomato sauce is really good, it’s not as dark of a red color as I would have liked to have. The Roma tomatoes gave it a lighter red than what you see in the grocery stores. Ok enough of my jabbering here is the recipe. It’s from the Ball Blue Book of Canning and Preserving:

Spicy Tomato Salsa:

6lbs. tomatoes (about 12 large)

9 dried hot chilie peppers

3 cups diced red onion

1-1/2 cups chopped cilantro, tightly packed

15 cloves garlic, minced

6 jalapeno peppers, seeded and diced

1 tbsp. salt

3/4 tsp. dried red chilie flakes

3/4 cup red wine vinegar

Wash tomatoes; drain, Peel, seed, and dice tomatoes into 1/4-inch pieces. Remove seeds from dried chilie peppers; place chili peppers in a small bowl. Pour boiling water over chilie peppers just to cover. Secure plastic wrap over bowl and allow to steep for 15 minutes. Drain half of the water. Puree chili peppers and remaining water in a food processor or blender for 1 minute or until smooth. Combine all ingredient’s in a large sauce-pot. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes or until mixture thickens. Ladle hot salsa into hot jars, leaving 1/4-inch head-space. Adjust two-piece caps. Process salsa according to your altitude. In my altitude 1,001-3,000 it’s 20 minutes. Please check with your local county extension office for the altitude in your area!!

Note: When cutting or seeding hot pepper, wear rubber gloves to prevent hands from being burned.

Well I better be off for now! I hope you all will try canning salsa! It taste too much better than the store-bought stuff in a jar!!!

Until next time,

Amanda 🙂