This heavenly pantry belongs to 7thswan on Flickr.
Day three of Mister’s vacation I had to put my foot down and say, “Hell no, I won’t go! All this galavanting around is wreaking havoc with my housewifery. The dishes are dirty, laundry is piling up, and my garden is rotting. I need one day at home to get some things done!” At least that’s how it went in my head. Even though we didn’t go anywhere, the day still led to an adventure. Adventures in canning, that is.
While the boys were outside doing manly things that boys do {like replacing the floorboard of the Jeep with scrap fake-wood and Great Foam – don’t ask} I was inside wrestling with my fear of canning. I have had a canner for a year now. Two canners, in fact. Mister gave me a pressure canner
I figured I could handle a batch of salsa. Plus, I already had all the ingredients either growing my garden or stored from my CSA. I chose a recipe from my Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving
- 7 cups of peeled tomatoes
- 2 cups of onion
- 1 cup of green bell pepper
- 8 jalapeño peppers
- 3 cloves of garlic
- ½ cup cilantro
I have to say that peeling tomatoes is not a task I enjoy. Eww! If you have never had the pleasure of this chore this is what you do: remove the stem, cut a small X on the bottom of the tomato and dip into boiling water for 30 seconds, then immediately dip in cold water. The skin cracks, gets all wrinkly, and peels right off, leaving you with a warm, squishy orb. It grosses me out. Chopping the tomatoes is no more fun than peeling them. What a mess! OY!
You boil this along with 1 jar (5.5 oz) tomato paste, ¾ cup white vinegar, and ½ teaspoon ground cumin over medium-high heat about 30 minutes until thickened. Then it’s on to the canning. You need to prepare your jars and lids by cleaning and heating in 180° water. The jars can be heated right in your canner. The lids should heated in a small saucepan. You will want to have your bands cleaned but at room temperature for easy handling. Working with one jar at a time, remove a jar from the canner and place on a heat proof surface. You need a jar lifter to do this. Next ladle your hot salsa into the heated jar, leaving the recommended amount of headspace. In this case, ½ inch. I highly recommend using a funnel to do this, especially if you are slovenly like me. Now you need to remove any air bubbles by sliding a nonmetallic utensil, like a rubber spatula, down between the food and the inside of the jar. Wipe the jar rim and threads with a clean cloth. You want to remove anything that would prevent a proper seal. Using a magnet lift a hot lid from the water and place it on the jar. Screw on a band until resistance is met, then increase to finger-tight. You want the band just tight enough to hold the lid in place, but still allow air to escape to create a vacuum, sealing the lid. Use your jar lifter to return the filled jar to the rack in the hot water-filled canner. Once all of the jars are in the canner, adjust the water level so it covers the jars by at least one inch. Cover the canner and bring water to a full rolling boil over high heat. Once the water is boiling hard and continuously, begin counting the processing time. This recipe calls for 35 minutes. After processing uncover the canner, wait five minutes, then remove the jars. The jars need to sit undisturbed in a draft-free area for a full 24 hours. After 24, you can remove the bands and store.
If everything went well the jars will have properly sealed and the lids will not move when pressed. Luck was on my side. It’s a far cry from my dream pantry in the opening picture, but I now have eight (8 oz.) jars of home-grown, home-canned salsa. I don’t know what took me so long. It was far harder in my head than in reality. I’m no canning expert, but if you have been hemming and hawing over wanting to can, I will leave you with this piece of advice: Just friggin’ do it already!
*DISCLAIMER: Midnight Maniac is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. If you purchase one of the linked items in this post, I will receive a small percentage of the product price. By no means will it make me rich, I’m just saying…
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