Impress your guests with homemade garden salsa.
Once you make your own homemade tomato salsa from the garden, you may never go store-bought again. Homemade salsa is a delicious way to use up an abundance of tomatoes, peppers and onions from your garden, whether you whip up a quick batch of fresh salsa or can a supply to enjoy all year long.
Fresh Salsa
Fresh garden salsa requires little more than chopping, mixing and letting your creation sit for a day or two. While same-day salsa will still taste good, once the flavors meld, the taste will be outstanding. Seed and chop a few tomatoes, onions and a jalapeno pepper or two from your garden and combine them in a bowl. Add a little bit of lemon juice or vinegar, salt and pepper, chopped fresh garlic and oregano. Adjust the ingredients to your taste. Refrigerate the finished product overnight before serving. Fresh salsa should be eaten within a week.
Home-Canned Salsa
If you have more tomatoes than you know what to do with, make a large batch of salsa and can it yourself. Start with 10 to 15 lbs. of tomatoes. Boil the tomatoes for about a minute, then plunge them into ice water. Peel, seed and chop the tomatoes. Add chopped bell peppers, hot peppers, onion, garlic and herbs. Season with lemon juice or vinegar, salt, pepper and other seasonings and heat until the salsa is well-blended. Pour the salsa into prepared canning jars and process in a boiling water canner as directed by the manufacturer.
Adjusting the Heat
Your salsa can be as hot or mild as you want it; it all depends on how much hot pepper, such as jalapeno, you add to the mix. Fresh jalapeno is quite hot, so start with a very small amount, then gradually add more if you want more heat. Most of the heat is in the seeds. For a milder salsa, discard the seeds and add just the flesh of the pepper a little at a time. The oils from hot peppers can burn your skin, so wear rubber gloves if possible and take care not to rub your eyes while working with the peppers.
Fruited Tomato Salsas
Although you can't go wrong with the usual mix of tomatoes, onion and peppers, you can add almost anything to homemade salsa, including fruits and berries. Experiment with adding fresh strawberry, mango or pineapple for a sweeter salsa that goes well with grilled meats, poultry and fish. If the fruit doesn't add the sweetness level you want, add a little bit of honey, but don't go overboard -- fruited salsa should have a savory-sweet balance.
Tags: chop tomatoes, from your, from your garden, garden salsa, juice vinegar, juice vinegar salt