Salsa Conference

Salsa – the hot bite of jalapeno pepper vapors swirl tantalizingly sweet when mixed with sweet onion and a variety of tomato flavors. We have missed homemade salsa in the worst way for the past couple of years. For a long time, October conference always meant making a batch or two of salsa. And then we didn't plant tomatoes one year and we didn't put up salsa. Or the next year. Or the year after that. But try as I may to find a variety on the store shelves that even closely matches the flavor of our homemade, I have come up empty handed time after time.

So today we pooled our final tomato crop with Bill’s and came up with one batch of salsa. Of course, part of the success is cooking it slow, all day. Simmer or lower. Allowing the excess fluid to steam off until it reduces to a spicy sweet and very very chunky final product. I spent the day at Bill and Steph’s. Conference was on and we enjoyed the talks while the salsa reduced. Brent spent the day on the road, mostly, trying to find a place where we could purchase a new steam canner, since ours was on loan someplace else (just couldn't remember where).

Bill finally located, I think, the last remaining canner on the shelves in Utah County. It was at Emergency Essentials in Orem. Poor Brent. He tried so many different local stores unsuccessfully before resigning himself to the drive there. But at least he returned victorious.

In the meantime, the salsa was cooking, cooking, cooking. And we ended up getting almost 14 pints out of the batch. (Would have been 14 if we hadn’t kept sampling it.) The final jar, partially filled, got finished off with chips before it even made it to the refrigerator.

Since I've had some requests for the recipe, I will post it here with pictures.

First, you take 30 Medium Size RED Tomatoes (as in vine ripened red, not orange, not green). Blanch them to remove the skins and put them in a very large pot with 3 Cups Vinegar and 4 Tablespoons Salt.

We figured out a long time ago that blanching fruit is a lot easier if the boiling water is right next to the sink. I use my old deep fat fryer for this. Any portable electric pot that will boil will work. Just drop a couple of tomatoes in at a time and replace them as you peel them under cold running water. The batch we made today came out very flavorful. We used a variety of tomatoes - Big Boys for flavor, Romas for pulp, plus some other varieties.

The recipe I have doesn't specify type of vinegar. For this, my preference is white vinegar.


I start the tomatoes cooking while I chop and add the rest of the ingredients. It is the high water content in the tomatoes that needs to be cooked off. So now that I have the tomatoes going, it's time to prepare the rest of the ingredients:

Six Large Onions - peeled and chopped. Remember, they will reduce in size with cooking. So we've found that it's best to start with fairly large pieces. A food processor chops them too fine. I also like to use white sweet onions (like Walla Walla's). Here's Bill taking over the onion chopping.


Then come the peppers: 3 Green Peppers (large), 3 Red Peppers (large), and anywhere from 3 to 15 jalapeno peppers.
That was from the original recipe we got. I've changed it to substitute one or two Anaheims for one green pepper. For very mild, stay with 3 jalapenos, and increase the number to increase the spiciness. We've never done more than about 7, but a lot depends on the size and heat of the peppers being used.

Remove the core of the peppers, but leave the seeds and chop them with the rest of the peppers. Leave the pieces of the red and green peppers in chunks a little smaller than the onions, but still fairly good sized. Anaheims can be chopped fairly fine.


We don't chop the jalapenos at all. We've found grating them fine is the best way to disperse their flavor. Jalapeno oil will burn forever into the hand so use disposable gloves or a sandwhich bag to protect your skin when handling them.


After everything's in the pot, it will be quite runny. Be sure to cook it at a very slow simmer, stirring frequently. All the juices will raise to the top, leaving the bulk to scorch on the bottom if it isn't kept stirred. This was about an hour after the final ingredients were added.


A couple of hours into the cooking process, the peppers are all cooked and the tomato pulp has blended well, no longer in chunks. It could be used at this state, but it is still very runny.


About four hours later, the batch has reduced about a third of its original content. It is now getting thick enough to scoop. I cooked it about an hour longer after this, then put in pint bottles and processed in a steam canner for 25 minutes.