Fruits of My Labor

Today was my first attempt at making salsa with tomatoes from my garden.

I started with these plus some more stashed in various places.

Popped the tomatoes in some boiling water for about 45 seconds and transferred to a bowl of ice water.  The skins slipped right off. 

I've got to tell you that slipping the skins off was easy; it's the seeding and coring that is a pain.  It took about two

hours to get five cups.  YIKES!  Of course, the tomatoes were fairly small; I have two Big Boy bushes, two cherry tomato, one grape tomato, and two Roma.  Don't attempt to do the cherry tomatoes. 

But, I did drain the leftovers into a pan for some very, very good fresh tomato juice.

The juice was extra delicious since I knew where it came from.  A few seeds slipped through the colander.

I needed 7 cups of tomatoes to follow the recipe I found.  There was a choice.  Either do some more tomatoes or open a can of diced tomatoes.  Hmmmm......another hour?  Hmmmmm, 5 seconds to open a can?  Which would you choose?  :D 

The canned tomatoes gave me almost 7 cups for the recipe.  I chopped some green onions, part of an onion from my garden, 2 jalapenos, a green pepper, 4 cloves of garlic, some cilantro, salt, added about 1/2 cup of vinegar and about 3 tablespoons of lime juice.  Cooked on the stove for about an hour and 15 minutes to reduce the liquid, poured into sterilized jars, topped with sterilized lids, and water bathed in boiling water for 15 minutes in the pressure cooker. 

Are you ready to see the fruits of my labor?  Here it is.

Yep, you are looking a two pint jars and one 8 oz. jar.   Needs more jalapeno.  If I decide to do another batch, I may just go with canned diced tomatoes.  I will not eat eggs without salsa.   I am thinking of canning some garden tomatoes but you do not need to seed them; just remove the skins and core.  Thinking....thinking...thinking.  :D

Until next time, God bless.