Is your salsa soupy enough? It's not supposed to be strained before canning, you can strain it when you open the jar(s).

I do take all the seeds and strained tomato guts from making Annie's Salsa (and extra tomatoes, peppers, onions) to make what I call "Goo Juice." Simmer it in the same pan while the salsa is in the canner and it will pick up the spice even if you donâÂÂt add any hot peppers. I usually only make 2-4 pints (my canner is too short for quarts), or stick it all in the fridge, since after making salsa I rarely have more than 7 lbs or so of tomatoes left (plus goo, so use 1C max of low-acid veggies per 7.33 lbs of tomatoes).

Use the Tomato-Vegetable Juice instructions from NCHFP.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato-Vegetable Juice Blend

Thanks ajsmama! I'm not sure my salsa is exactly "soupy" but there is liquid about 3/4 of the way up the jar. Next time I won't drain so much liquid out!

I'll follow the directions for Tomato-Vegetable Juice when I process it, all should be fine!

Make sure to add the lemon juice even though you think there's enough acid in the liquid.

But first - can you post a picture of your salsa jars? I know you don't even want to think about reprocessing 95 pints, but someone should take a look and make sure there's enough liquid. Carol and Dave helped reassure me that my tomato sauce was liquid enough.

Do you have a "mound" of chopped veggies sitting above the liquid in the jars? Does it move and go under the liquid when you twist the jar? I'm trying to picture liquid 3/4 of the way up the jar and the image is not reassuring. You might need to add that liquid back in and reprocess (at least the ones done in the last 24 hours).

What recipe did you follow? I don't know of a recipe that calls for straining the salsa after it's cooked and before putting it in the jars - if there's any straining, it's done when you peel and chop the tomatoes but a lot of recipes don't even do that (b/c the tomato juice and seeds are acidic).

This post was edited by ajsmama on Sun, Aug 31, 14 at 16:38

Hello again,

I just looked at our jars again, and the liquid is actually just about even with the solids--in other words--there may be just a few pieces of tomato, etc that are not completely covered with liquid. There is not a mound of solids not covered. Certainly no more than just a few pieces. Hoping this is OK, we've always done it this way and not had any problems. (Although I know that this is no guarantee against future issues!)

We used a recipe published by the Yakima County Extension Service--one that our family has used for several years. We are very exact in our measurements and processing procedures and times, etc.

This post was edited by DianaInIdaho on Sun, Aug 31, 14 at 16:56

Wow that is a lot of left over liquid for a recipe that uses paste tomatoes and only calls for 2 cups of liquid. How many times did you triple or quadruple the recipe?

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Yakima County Ext. salsa recipe

We didn't double the recipe at all, we made each batch separately, and all veggies were chopped by hand--Yup, we're a little crazy!

The tomatoes were quite juicy, and I saved all the juice, even while chopping up the tomatoes--before I cooked the salsa.

The juice is very tasty, and I just don't want to waste it. I'm going to process it tomorrow, so will report back on how it goes!

RE: your like to the recipe-that's not the same recipe that we have, but it does look good.

This post was edited by DianaInIdaho on Sun, Aug 31, 14 at 21:24

your like to the recipe-that's not the same recipe that we have, but it does look good.

Oh, sorry. It was the only one I could find from that source.

Dave

PS: the juice makes a good soup base too

Can you provide a link to (or type out) the recipe you used? It's probably one from NCHFP, look on there and see - the extensions usually don't develop their own recipes.

If the juice was from the drained tomatoes and wasn't from the cooked salsa then I'm sure your salsa is liquid enough. The juice is probably pretty watery, but makes a good "stock", you can follow the NCHFP instructions for just tomato juice if there weren't any onions or peppers cooked or mixed in (even from the cutting board?). But be sure to the lemon juice since if I understand correctly this juice was collected before anything went into the pot, it's not "salsa juice", it's juice from drained tomatoes.

Dave and ajsmama--thank you for the help and advice, I really appreciate it!

Here's the recipe we used:
10 c chopped tomatoes
6 cups chopped peppers (a mixture of bell, jalapeño, poblano, etc)
4 c chopped onions
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/4 c lemon joice
3 t salt
1 tsp pepper

Brought to a boil and simmered for 10 minutes

We processed in a BWB for 20 minutes (adjusted for altitude here in Boise, as we are at 2700 ft)

The leftover juice is both from the tomatoes and from the bottom of the pot after filling the jars.

I'm processing the juice now --using the directions for Tomato Garden Vegetable Juice from the current Blue Book. We are processing it in a pressure canner, and I added 1 T of lemon juice to each PINT of juice. 4o minutes at 12 lbs, again adjusted for our altitude.

When we're done with our 148 pounds of tomatoes this afternoon, I'm going to celebrate with a well deserved spicy Bloody Mary made with this juice!!

Thanks again!

Hmm, that's almost the same as Chile Salsa II from NCHFP site - except for the garlic. That makes 8 pints? You made how many batches? 11-12?

Your recipe also uses 1.25C lemon juice instead of the 1C vinegar the NCHFP recipe uses, so you might be OK with the added garlic since lemon juice is more acidic but I'd check with Yakima to see if that recipe is still approved - maybe they modified the NCHFP recipe and did further testing, or maybe they did the original recipe development/testing since I think NCHFP just added this recipe recently and you say you've had it for several years. I'm just a little concerned the (current) NCHFP version doesn't have ANY garlic.

I'm sure the juice is fine, if you made that many batches and had just 1/4C liquid left from each that's 3C right there, plus what you drained from over 100 lbs (you said 148?) lbs of tomatoes, esp. processing it in a PC for 40 min.

I don't know why Yakima doesn't have that recipe (or Chile Salsa II) on their website now.

OK, here's one that is a little closer with the garlic and low-acid veggies. It only uses 3 cloves of garlic for 10C of tomatoes but uses 5C of peppers, 5C of onions, AND 2.5C of chile peppers with 1.25C of vinegar (not even your lemon juice) so I'm sure you're safe with the extra 3 cloves (1.5tsp) of garlic in place of the 2.5C of peppers (and a little cilantro) esp. since you used lemon juice instead of vinegar. This recipe is also in the Ball Complete book.

I'm just wondering why I can't find your exact recipe on any extension site.

Here is a link that might be useful: Ball Zesty Salsa