THE HOMESTEAD SALSA RECIPE
We're taking home canning to a new level. We are canning our salsa over a wood fire. This is something that you rarely see today. But years ago when canning first came into practice, people did all of it over a wood fire. Today, most people do their canning over electric or gas heat but when you factor in the cost of the fuel or electricity, you're saving very little money if any at all by doing your own canning. The only benefit is that it's food that you grew and didn't purchase.
Our family LOVES salsa and we eat over a 100 pint jars a year. These pictures are from last year and we are gearing up for another season of canning jars and jars of yummy spicy salsa! Today, we are going to go through a whole days process of canning our salsa with our own homegrown garden ingredients! YAY!! We use our salsa for lots of quick recipes during the year and not just for dipping chips into. We use it for tacos or sauces and recipes that call for tomatoes. A jar is perfect for anything we want to spice up!
Pressure Canning Over Water Bath?
First you may ask why would we pressure can our salsa when you can simply water bath your salsa? The simple answer is that it's faster. If you're only making a dozen jars of salsa, Yeah, water bath canning is fine. But if your putting up 30-40 jars in a day, pressure canning is the way you want to go with a large canner.
So This is starting our day! My oldest, Joshua @thehomeschoolkid helping to pick some maters! Everyone helps out in the garden!
Here is Jaimie, is she hiding? NOPE, just busy getting to all those red ripe tomatoes!
It's me, picking and recording at the same time. The variety we grow the most is the Arkansas Traveler. It's an heirloom tomato that will grow back on its own here every year. We just try and save as many seeds as we need.
Jaimie is busy collecting one of the most IMPORTANT ingredients. PAPALO! Papalo taste very similar to cilantro and long after your spring cilantro plants have bolted and gone to seed, the Papalo plant is growing strong and is ready for summer salsa making! YUM!
Inside, Jaimie is now cutting up all the ingredient including harvested peppers, tomatoes, garlic, papalo and onions.
The fire is going and we're beginning to cook all the ingredients together. This is one reason people love our salsa. The wood smoke adds a hint of flavor to the mix and makes it taste way better than store bought!
Keep stirring! It's all coming together now!
The cooking is done, now we need to get this amazing homestead food into the jars for canning! Each jar is carefully loaded with salsa.
Then the jars are wiped around the edge to make sure nothing obstructs the lids from being put on.
Jaimie begins loading the All American brand canner carefully stacking the jars so they won't fall over. This canner is big enough to hold two levels of pint or quart jars. It's also important to add a splash of vinegar to your water inside the canner. This will keep the jars clear and keep them from clouding over.
Now we just have to lock down the lid and wait for the fire to come up to pressure. The lid is a metal to metal seal so the inside rim of the lid is simply wiped down with a paper towel dipped in olive oil. This will help to make the lid easy to remove once the pressure has come down and we want to remove the lid. IMPORTANT: It's important to regulate the heat of the fire so the canner does not go over pressure. When the canner is at the right pressure, we place a large piece of metal over the fire underneath the canner. This basically separates the fire from the canner and keeps the canner from getting too hot.
All done! When the timer is up, Jaimie and I carefully remove the canner to the ground and allow the pressure to start dropping. Whew! Then we start the process all over again for the next batch. YES! It's hard work, but it's very rewarding work to eat of the food you grew, and stored all winter long!
FULL RECIPE
An American Homestead Salsa
Yield: makes 6 pint jars
8 cups tomatoes (peeled and chopped with juice removed)
2 cups onions (finely chopped)
2 cups sweet peppers (finely chopped)
1 cup chopped jalapeno peppers (more or less to your liking)
1 head of garlic (peeled and chopped)
1/4 cup chopped papalo leaves or 2 tsp. dried cilantro
2 tsp. cumin
2 tsp. black pepper
2 Tbs. salt
1/3 cup white vinegar
12 oz. tomato paste
Combine all ingredients in a large stockpot. Bring to a boil and simmer
between 15 and 30 minutes. Depending on the amount of juice you still
have in your tomatoes, this may take a shorter or longer time. You want
the salsa to cook and some of the liquid to evaporate so that it is a good
salsa consistency.
Using a ladle and canning funnel, pour the hot salsa into pint jars, leaving
about 1 inch of head space. Wipe the rims of the jars and cover with new
lids. Screw on the bands and tighten.
Process your jars in a pressure canner for 15 minutes at the appropriate
pressure for your altitude.
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Love these types of articles. I have bookmarked your website for future reference. I have an affinity for hard-working people.
I am not much of a cook; but Jaimie's recipes always inspire me to try.
BRO! We can all the time, and when we move the goal is to build an outdoor kitchen pretty quickly so we can emulate what you are doing. One tip that you shared that I appreciate is the olive oil on the rings. We put a splash of vinegar in the canner to keep the jars from looking hazy.
Oh yeah, I need to add that in the article...totally forgot about the vinegar!
Oh my goodness! I am definitely going to try out your recipe. Great job Jamie.
you will love it!
Yes...I need to buy your papalo seeds soon to try it out....I love cilantro too but it bolts really fast in AZ....lol
This information is so valuable. I just got my pressure canner and look forward to following your instructions.
That is GREAT! Yeah the thing to remember with canning is to follow the instructions. There are lots of great websites out there. WE highly recommend "Simply Canning".
Are they on steemit or youtube?
or I guess I can just search for them on both...lol
Fantastic post. Have always wanted to know how to can using a wood fire. Couldn't figure out how to maintain the right pressure amount. Genius using the metal plate. Saving this for future use.
Yeah, the metal plate works great! It's so simple. Just cover and separate the fire from the pot. And then remove when you want heat to come back.
I am not sure if you know about the two main rebate apps but one is ibotta and the other is checkout 51...but ibotta has some rebates on ball jars right now so if you guys need to buy more jars you should look at them. I use those apps all the time....then I save the money until November to use the rebate money for extra Christmas money.
That looks pretty good, thanks for posting the recipe!
Great post, it looks like you all had a lot of fun doing this. My wife and I will definitely use this and thank you for the recipe. I've never really liked tomatoes by themselves but enjoy them in other forms like salsa, marinara, ketchup and such. Have a blessed day.
Hi! I am a robot. I just upvoted you! I found similar content that readers might be interested in:
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@cheetah Bot you are way off, that was a completely different article with different pictures we wrote. I think you've blown a sensor somewhere. LOL
Love this type of content. Your two sites are my all time favorites! Cant wait to have some property of my own to try out some of these topics you cover! Keep it coming!
Oh man that looks absolutely deelish!! Great post Jamie. Thank you for the recipe and detailed article.
I just love watching your videos I have canned since I was 16, Im 32 now I love to make some salsa, my fav is making vegetable soup starter with tomatoes .I love everything yall do, So nice to see folks like us in the world. Happy Homesteading
great resource, it's always fun to see how somebody else puts their twist of something as everyday as salsa. upvoted, resteemed and posted to my facebook page to rub their noses in what they're missing over here ππ€£ππ
I am hungry. I am going to ask my wife to do some salsa from our garden. Thank you.
Thanks for posting the recipe with pictures. Looks awesome. Now I need to find some papalo seeds. Seems like everything that I planted in my garden has bolted early this year due to the hot spring days in the Midwest.
Love love LOVE this. Now that we're finally on our land in the Ozarks (been here 3 weeks!), we're so excited to learn how to do this. When we get our outdoor kitchen going, we'll be canning with a wood fire too! We haven't had tomatoes in ages (knowing how pesticide-covered the storebought ones are has had us on pause, and I miss them), so seeing your beautiful, productive garden has me excited for finally getting ours established.
Thanks for the recipe. Can't wait to taste the woodsmoke.
Looks good and homemade and home grown is always the best way to go!!!
Thanks for posting this! We're planning on using this recipe for when we can for our first time this year!!
I have been a long time fan of your family, and my partner and I often refer to you videos when we conducting our own homestead projects! I wanted to take second to say, I appreciate you guys showing the real life side of homesteadin and not the cleaned up picture perfect version of what you are doing. I know when I come to your page, I will get a realistic expectation of what it will look like. Not the all white bed and breakfast look, that makes it feel impossible for someone with a wild child running around. Thank you for being real with your filming, and photography!
One of best compliments we've gotten. We try to keep it real. If you ever see me driving around in a new truck or tractor, slap me.
I'll do you that favor! I just joined steemit and put my first post up today. I joined because of your strong stance for steemit. I know from what i have learned from your videos that you wouldn't recommend a product or service that you would not HONESTLY use yourself. Thank you for all you do to walk alongside us homesteaders. Old and young.
I appreciate it! Thanks!
I do my own tomato sos but I think I'm going to try to make my own salsa this year.
Thanks for sharing!
Love your stuff... always informative AND interesting.
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I joined steem it so I could still follow u guys and especially now it took ages to get the confirmation email and now I am finally up and running so yay I can watch you again looking forward to new videos I am learning so much from you both homesteading and new2torah thank you xx
I LOVE that Jamie uses a wood fire to can. I will be trying this next year once we build our outdoor kitchen. Thank you for showing me I can..can (LOL) using a wood fire!