Making Salsa

Here's something that I wrote awhile ago . . .

Oct. 2

Life has been running at full tilt, and I’ve been trying hard to keep up, or maybe I should say catch up. I don’t want to bore you with all of the details, but a couple of the biggest things have been;

1. We were put on the School Sale committee. For those of you who don’t know what that is, our church has a fundraiser every fall which we call “Apple Butter Day”. We cook big kettles of apple butter over a wood fire, bake lots of bread and other goodies, make chicken noodle soup with homemade noodles, do pony rides, and just anything that we think we could sell to help raise money for our school! We get a pretty good attendance, and earn a nice amount of money too. But it’s big enough to keep the committee hopping and stressed pretty far in advance . . . I’ve been learning about that this year!

2. My garden doesn’t know that I’m busy and don’t want to hear from it right now. So canning continues to interrupt any plans I manage to make. Or at least set them back a few more days!
My latest accomplishment in the canning department was to make 39 pints of salsa that has been an absolute hit with my family and everyone else who has tried it. And um, excuse me while I pat myself on the back . . . Ouch . . . Oh yes, did I mention that it’s an original recipe? Well, kind of. I was trying to recreate the wonderful Peach Pineapple Chipotle Salsa that is sold at Wally World. David thinks I managed to pull it off, and is tickled to have a good supply! (Although according to his math; 1 jar per day x 365 days in a year = 39 pints isn’t enough to last very long!) I guess I’ll make one more batch and call it good!

Here’s the recipe;
3 gal. peeled and diced tomatoes (30 lb)
1 gal. diced peaches
35 oz. -approx.- diced or crushed pineapple (add the juice too!)
6 onions, chopped fine
6 bell peppers, chopped fine
29 oz tomato puree (or a smaller size of paste)
1 C. Sugar
5 1/3 C. vinegar
32 t. salt (it’s between ¾ and 1 C. Sorry I didn’t figure it out exactly!)
2 t. liquid smoke
1 ½ C. hot salsa (the last time I made salsa, it was way too hot, so I’m using it up!)

The last two ingredients were my own innovation, to be more correct, you should use chipotle peppers (smoked peppers). But I thought this turned out really similar anyway!
Combine all ingredients in two large stock pots. Bring to a boil and simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Then add
½-¾ C. clear jell

Thicken to the consistency that you like. Ladle into jars leaving ¼ inch headspace. Cap and load into your oven. Turn heat to 250 and set a timer for 1 hour. When the timer goes off, turn your oven off. Once it’s cooled off, take the jars out and turn them upside down overnight.
Or just process them the old fashioned way in a water bath for 15 minutes.

Enjoy!

Anyone have any suggestions on a name for this recipe? (Since I don’t want to copy entirely off of WalMart.) Maybe I should just call it Peachey Southwestern Salsa!

(Now to get to work on the 4 ½ bushels of apples sitting in my kitchen waiting to be made into sauce!!)