Ok, here’s a rough recipe of what we used, it’s an offshoot of the Spicy Tomato Salsa found in the Ball Blue Book canning guide.
This will be long. I’m adding instructions for the canning process if you’re not familiar with that part.
This is for 4-5 pints-
(Before starting, you’ll need to put on a pair or couple pairs of nitrile, or latex gloves, as you can get chemical burns cutting up hot peppers. Even jalapeños. Plus, if possible, cut up the hot peppers outside, as the fumes can get a bit intense in an enclosed area.)
We used about 4qt of tomatoes, after they were processed for use. I think weight wise, it may have been 8lb of tomatoes to begin with. Processing involves taking ripe tomatoes, and immersing them in a sink with boiling water (maybe a couple quarts of boiling water) for a few minutes, then into a sink with cold water, with ice cubes to chill it. This facilitates getting the peel off the tomatoes.
Then take the tomatoes out of the cold water, take off the peel, cut off any bad spots, and cut out the stem core. Then cut them into quarters, then again, until you have chunks about half the size of an orange wedge. You’ll need about 3.5-4qt of these chunks.
Put these into a large pot, we use a 5qt pot, it should mostly fill up the pot.
3-4 decent sized white or red onions, you’ll need about 3 cups of onions, dice into small bits.
Take 4-5 medium jalapeños, cut in half, cut out the pith and seeds, cut into small pieces, we used about 1-1.5 cups.
Cut up a small handful of cilantro into small pieces.
We didn’t have any, but you can cut up about 4-8 decent sized cloves of garlic, minced. We used garlic powder, about a half teaspoon.
We also cut up a couple Serrano and a large medium hot banana peppers. Cut in half, remove pith and seeds, then dice into small pieces. This is if you want spicier salsa.
We also added a small amount of cayenne pepper powder, maybe a half teaspoon. Salt amount will vary, we may have used about one or two tablespoons. Start with one and add more if needed. We also added a couple shakes of black pepper and pepper flakes.
We used about one pint of apple cider vinegar, and a teaspoon of lime juice. And, to give the mixture a bit more body, we also add a small can of tomato paste.
I believe that’s it, you don’t need to add water as the tomatoes will provide that.
Give everything a good stir in the pot, put on stove and cook on high heat, you want to get the mixture boiling. Depending on how thick you want it, you’ll have to cook it a while, I think it took a half hour to get ours to cook down to the consistency we wanted. Give it stir a bit to keep it from scorching, especially as it gets cooked down. You’ll probably need to skim out the tomato foam as it cooks at first.
Taste it as it cooks, take a teaspoon or so, put it in a small bowl, and taste it with a different spoon. Blow on it to cool before tasting. Add salt or other seasoning to taste.
While it’s cooking down, you should have already prepared the jars, lids and rings. We used pint jars. They should be thoroughly cleaned, we usually wash them in the sink in hot water with a teaspoon of bleach to sterlize them. Rinse thoroughly and set upside down to let them drain and dry. Take your rings and lids, wash them in hot soapy water, rinse, then place in a small pot with enough water to cover them. Put on stove burner and put on low heat. You don’t want the water boiling, as some folks say that can damage the seal on the lids, but I’m not certain on that.
Prepare your canner, it should be big and deep enough to handle a few pints. Fill up with water, maybe about 2-3qt. Place on large burner on stove, set to medium heat to get water warmed up. Add a teaspoon of vinegar into the water, this keeps the jars from getting a film on the glass.
After your mixture is cooked down to your liking, place jars on a towel, and start adding the salsa to the jars. You’ll need a funnel to pour the mixture into the jars to avoid making a mess. Be careful with the hot mixture! Fill up the jars up to a half inch below the rim. Continue until all the jars are filled. Clean off the rims with a clean cloth or paper towel to remove any material that would prevent the lids from sealing.
Use a magnet stick, take a lid out of the pot of warm water, center on jar, then take a ring out, place on top of jar, lightly tighten onto jar. Not too tight, you’re basically just wanting the ring to hold the lid down while it processes.
Canner should have a tray or some kind of item to keep the jars off the bottom of canner. Place jar into canner, and repeat this until all the jars are loaded into canner. You may have to use tongs to lower jars into the water. Cover jars with enough water so you have about an inch of water over the tops of the jars.
Turn up heat and cover canner until water starts boiling. Once water is in a rolling boil, set a timer for 15 minutes. You can probably back off the heat once it starts boiling, and slide the lid open a bit to let the steam vent some.
After 15 minutes are up, turn off heat, let set 5 minutes. Take out jars with tongs, set on towel to cool off, don’t touch the rings or lids while the jars cool. You might hear a pinging noise, which means jars are sealing. Allow to cool off, we usually let them set overnight.
Check jars later, take off rings, and verify lids have sealed by very lightly pulling on the edges, and make sure center of lid is pulled down. If lid hasn’t sealed, place in frig and consume soon. The other sealed jars can be wiped off, lids labeled, and put into storage. Some folks leave the rings on after they seal, but we take them off when we put the jars in the cellar.
