Bluebird Meadows Bed & Breakfast Salsa

Yeild: 13 pints and 3 ½ pints

Combine all ingredients except fresh cilantro in a large canning pot, preferably with a heavy bottom.

**Note: This recipe makes a medium hot salsa. For less heat/spiciness omit the habanero and seed all your jalapenos except one. For extra heat add an additional habanero or a scotch bonnet to the batch, very finely diced.

*1 heaping 6 quart basket of tomatoes, skinned, cored and diced (approximately 12 cups diced tomatoes) skinning your tomatoes is totally optional, if you use plum tomatoes the skins are so thin that you can use them as is.

*for the very best salsa, start with vine ripened Ontario tomatoes and other fresh produce preferably from your own garden or local farmers market.

(to skin tomatoes drop in boiling water until skins crack, remove with slotted spoon to the sink that’s full of ice water. Skins should slip right off)

Note: Dicing and chopping vegetables by hand rather than using a food processor yields a nicer consistency of salsa.

3 cups of mixed diced sweet peppers….yellow, orange, red and green

(while chopping hot peppers, wear rubber or neoprene gloves)

1 habanero pepper, small dice…include seeds

8 jalapeno peppers small dice…dice three whole ones including seeds, and 5 seeded

3 hot banana peppers seeded and diced

1 hot red pepper with seeds, diced

2 -3 cups of chopped new yellow cooking onions (approximately 6 small)

5-6 large cloves of fresh new garlic (hopefully out of your garden or farmers market)

2 tbsp. sugar

1 tbsp. salt

1 tsp. “hot” red east Indian chili powder (available in east Indian food stores)

2 tsp. paprika

1 tsp. dried oregano leaves

1 tsp. cumin seeds

1 tsp. ground cumin

½ tsp. dried ground coriander seed

½ tsp. cayenne pepper

1 tsp. garlic powder

1 tbsp. chili powder

1 tsp. celery salt

1 bunch of washed chopped cilantro (just leaves and small stems)

5 small cans of tomato paste

Combine everything except cilantro and tomato paste. Bring slowly to a boil, stirring often and regularly. Add tomato paste and simmer 1 hour, stirring often. Should be thick and bubbly. Add cilantro and cook 5 minutes longer. Bottle in hot jars from the dishwasher, seal and process jars in boiling water bath.

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