Cooler Weather=Preserving

Yesterday if was pretty nice and cool we had a ton of produce and I was feeling good so we did a marathon of preserving and baking. Our agenda included baking bread, making and canning tomato salsa, making and freezing basil pesto and freezing sweet corn.

I love getting homemade gifts. Last year my aunt, who has been a mentor at preserving, gave me a jar of apple butter and one of salsa. I had been looking for a cooked salsa recipe I could preserve and here it is.

15 Large tomatoes
7 medium onions chopped
5 large bell peppers chopped
12 cloves garlic diced
2 12 oz. Can tomato paste (I added only 1 can)
2/3 cup lemon juice (I added 1 cup)
1-2 Tbsp. Honey
1/2 tsp. Cumin (I added 1 1/2 tsp.)
1 bunch of cilantro (I added 1 tsp. Oregano instead)
1 1/2 Tbsp. Salt
 
Put all ingredients except cilantro into a kettle and cook for 1 1/2 hours. Add cilantro for last 1/2 hour. Put in sterile jars. Makes about 8 pints.
 

It smelled wonderful bubbling on the stove. I addded coriander instead of oregano and though I didn’t do it this time I think it could handle a hint of heat with a jalapeno or two. I also processed it for 30 minutes in my steam canner.

We also worked on sweet corn. Here I blanched some of our sugar pearl sweet corn for 3 minutes before taking it to the “cutting station.”

Avril liked putting the corn in bags, she is really getting to be a great helper! and we had plenty of corn for dinner.

At the end of the day we had 2 loaves of good brown bread, 3 bags of pesto, 6 quarts of corn and 7 pints of salsa. A good days work.