Salsa recipe - the best ever

Yesterday we made Salsa. I must say it is the best ever. You just can’t compare homemade salsa with bought salsa. They don’t use the quality ingredients you can put into homemade salsa. It is important to use ripe tomatoes and ripe peppers. We found the Roma tomatoes are the best, because they are not as watery as other tomatoes and because of their shape they are easier to chop up.

Here is the recipe:

Chop:
6 kg [6000grams] (13.2  pounds. -1 pound = 453 grams-) ripe tomatoes (Roma)
7 - hot peppers (Hungarian wax peppers, they look like Banana peppers)
10 - large (we used around 14 smaller ones) sweet peppers  (red and green and yellow)
3 – large-sized onions
7 - tablespoons fresh parsley (finely chopped)
5 - leaves fresh basil (finely chopped)
3 - teaspoons fresh Oregano (finely chopped)
5 - cloves garlic (crushed)
1 - tablespoon salt
Juice of 2 limes

Boil tomatoes for about 15 minutes in a large pot (12 quarts steel pot). Remove most of the liquid to decrease cooking time. Dip a ladle into the boiling tomato pulp and let the foam run into the ladle.

Add the rest of the ingredients.

Boil for 30 minutes on medium heat,  then simmer on medium low until thick and vegetables are soft, stirring frequently. (Total cooking time approximately 90 minutes, could be less, depending on how much liquid is in the pot). Don’t overcook, otherwise Salsa will turn to mush.

Ladle hot salsa into sterilized glasses. Seal. Use new lids. Put glasses into preheated oven at 250 F for 20 minutes. Let cool until lids pop. Then store in cool room.

We had 8 ½ 500 ml (1 pint) glasses.

Notes: This recipe makes a mild Salsa. If you want a hotter Salsa, add more hot peppers or add some hot sauce. All of the ingredients are approximate amounts.

If you have no hot peppers just add hot sauce. In that case you may want to add more sweet peppers.

How to sterilize glasses: We use Sodium Metabisulfite. You can buy it in powder form in wine making stores. It can be used over and over until it doesn’t smell anymore. Just fill one glass with the sterilizing liquid, then pour it into the other glasses one by one. After sterilizing rinse glasses with warm water. This is the fastest and easiest way to sterilize your glasses.