Can't say I've been making or trying out new things this year in the kitchen. Life, the universe, and everything has been busy. I've stopped making the crockpot apple butter because it simply yields more jars than I can reasonably give away as gifts. Besides all the hassle of making the apple butter, nobody is eating it. Bummer. Anyhow.
Homemade salsa is always a winner. There is more to it than just eating it with chips, tacos, or nachos. Salsa goes into a variety of recipes. In July I did a control batch of salsa; basically the heat base is from a dozen green jalapenos and two red jalapenos. It is surprisingly mild; though, probably has a little more heat than the hatch chile salsa.
This season, I've altered the hatch chile salsa ingredient ratio that I used in the previous year. It currently includes:
4 large green jalapenos, seeded and stemmed, then diced
12 tomatillos, quartered
5# red tomatoes, stemmed, chopped
1 bunch fresh cilantro. finely chopped
2 heads of garlic, peeled and chopped
1.5 lbs prepared hatch chiles (picked this up from Trader Joes)
12 fresh hatch chiles, prepared (roasted, peeled, seeded, chopped) -- this surprisingly only made 1 cup of prepared chiles
1 green bell pepper, stemmed/seeded, then diced
2 tbsp sea salt
1/4 c fresh lime juice
This batch made 7 pints total: 6 pints plus 2 half pint jars
I'm sure that omitting the red tomatoes would have just made it a salsa verde (or green salsa) but I like the sweetness that tomatoes bring to salsa.
Yeah, the processing was different too. Because it took so long to prep all the ingredients, I ended up only boiling the ingredients together (except for the jalapenos, cilantro, green bell pepper, salt. and lime juice) for 1.5 hrs. Then I let it all cool down and stuck the pot into the refrigerator until I could complete the recipe. Fact of it is, I didn't have fresh limes on hand. Ooops.
By the end of the week (today), I managed to get around to preparing and adding the rest of the ingredients. Before adding the remaining ingredients, I tasted the salsa. A little bland, but what did I expect, I hadn't salted it. Also, it lacked the spicy heat of chiles, even though more than two pounds of processed hatch chile peppers went into the batch. I also pureed it to a not-chunky consistency with the immersion blender.
For texture, I diced the green jalapenos and green bell pepper at this stage.
The salsa pot might have been simmering on the stove for an hour more or so; then I added the jalapenos, bell pepper, cilantro, salt, and lime juice and cooked the batch for a half hour more to help preserve the color of the bell pepper and cilantro.
I did not blend the salsa before putting these into prepared jars and into a 15-minute boiling water bath.
