Spicy Garden Salsa

Hi you all! 

I will get right to the point, because you're here for the salsa recipe and not chatter.

However, I do hope you are doing well! Okay, here you go! 

We try to have minimal steps in the kitchen as it seems we always have 467 things going on at once. 

We make our salsa in bulk and freeze it for later. You could can- be SURE to follow all guidelines for safe canning if doing so. 

This is a 2 pound ish recipe. 2 pounds of tomatoes that is. 

We use any and all tomatoes, besides cherry tomatoes for this recipe. We core them and put them in the stock pot whole or maybe cut in half if they are huge. You read that right. Whole. Just throw them in there. 

Turn the burner on medium heat. This is when I dice up the rest of the stuff to go in the salsa. After about 10 minutes it will sound like the tomatoes are boiling, but remember you haven't put anything else in there yet. It is the water from the tomatoes making that sound. At this point I will add (for this recipe) about one cup of distilled white vinegar. 

Let the tomatoes reduce. In doing so the skins will slip right off and you can remove them from your pot. You can also do this before, we just don't do save a "step", but you sure can. You could also once all made run the salsa through a mill or something similar to remove skins and seeds. A few skins wont hurt you, they actually add flavor. Some will say that the seeds make the salsa bitter, but I don't agree with that really. You do what you want! That is the beauty of cooking! Take someone's recipe and make it yours if you want. 

Okay, so the tomatoes are "boiling" on medium heat. For this spicy salsa we cut up 4 medium green bell peppers, 3 lemon jalapeños, 3 jalapenos , 4 garden salsa peppers, and 2-3 other mild random peppers. We like cubanelle or something similar. You can do more or less depending on your spice level. This seems like a lot, but for this many tomatoes it's not. Next, we used 3 large yellow/white onions. Try to pick a sweeter variety since this recipe does not have ANY sugar in it. You sure can use a red onion if that is all you have handy. YOU are in charge. 6-8 garlic cloves. We used 2-3 cut up carrots too. Carrots add texture and a natural sweetness to a tomato based sauce. Add a HEAVY dash or two of salt. And lastly 2-3 whole limes- well just the juice. 

Dice and or add all of the above and let it simmer with the tomatoes for about 45 minutes on low. This allows all the flavors to blend together. 

We then let the salsa cool on the stove for an hour or two and then blend it up with an immersion blender. You can also put it all in a food processor or bigger blender to mix. 

We keep one quart in the fridge and then the rest go in the freezer! Depending on the size jar you store in, this will make several! 8-10 quart or like size jars. 

Recipe:

2 pounds ish tomatoes (we use any and all), 1 cup distilled white vinegar, 2-3 large white onions (we used walla walla), 6-8 garlic cloves minced, 2-3 diced and skinned carrots, several peppers (see above) and remember you can always add more spice but it is hard to take it away, heavy dash or two of salt- by dash I mean small handful, and 2 limes (the juice). 

Simple! And so tasty. Make it yours! And have fun in the kitchen! Cheers.