I found myself with a counter full of tomatoes and peppers. So we got some cilantro and made Summer Salsa. There is something inherently wonderful about opening a can of homegrown salsa in the middle of a grey winter. Somehow the fresh taste of the tomatoes is captured in a way that you just can't get from store-bought. It only takes a few bites before you start thinking you might make it through winter after all.
So if you think you might want to have some "Get Through The Winter Elixir" handy, here is my recipe. You should probably have a bag of tortilla chips handy when you make this in case you want to sample. Frequently. So you can, you know, make sure it tastes right. I think I ate the equivalent of a pint size jar. Just making sure...
Summer Salsa
4 cups chopped tomatoes
1 green pepper chopped
1 onion chopped
2 cloves garlic, diced
2 tsp. jalapeno peppers (or to desired hotness -- other hot peppers are also fine)
1/4 cup vinegar (you can half this if desired)
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar (if you halved the vinegar, you should also cut this in half)
1 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. cumin powder
1 tsp. cayenne pepper (if desired)
Fresh cilantro, chopped -- to desired taste.
Mix all the ingredients together in a heavy pot and bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Process in pint jars in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. One batch makes about 2 pints, or maybe only 1 after proper taste testing. Feel free to tweak the recipe to suit your tastes and to double, triple, quadruple, etc. I chopped up 16 cups of yellow and red tomatoes (all red tomatoes will, obviously, make a redder, more traditional salsa) and adjusted the amounts accordingly.
