Very nice Lesa..........but you're puttin' this "over 40" girl to shame!! :+)

Cute, John, real cute! Your "photo" looks like ya been eatin' good! (grin)

I like the Annie label. You need to put in WonderWeiner!! Her doxie she lost this past year. What a tribute to the little guy!

Laura lea:
Welcome to the forum. We do have lots of fun here!!! Even in the winter, we live vicariously through our Aussie and New Zealand members!! There's always something RIPE here! Conversation, mostly.

Deanna

Hi Laura,

Welcome! You'll have lots of fun here. Always a new idea around the corner.

Annie's Peach Twist is just like Annie's Salsa near the top of the thread, but substituting a quart of peaches for half the tomatoes.

1 quart tomatoes, skinned and chopped
1 quart peaches, skinned and diced
2 ½ cups onion
1 ½ cups peppers
3 to 5 jalapenos
6 cloves garlic
4 tsp cumin
2 tsp pepper
2 tbs salt
1 cup cider vinegar
Brown sugar to taste

My tinkers are to leave out the paste, sauce and cilantro, and double the cumin. I think the paste and sauce have a tendency to overwhelm the peach flavor, which is very subtle. I dislike cilantro, but like cumin.

I wouldn't worry about the sugar if I were you. I am having to add sugar this year too, mostly because my garden tomatoes are not developing much sweetness, even the varieties that are usually very sweet. It's been slightly cooler here this season, and that's the only reason I can come up with. I can't explain the salt issue. I've never had that experience, but everyone's taste is different and what is just right for me may be too much for you. I guess if I were you I would cut way back on the salt next time you make it, chill it overnight and then add the salt so that it pleases you. Then bring it back up to a boil and can as per the recipe.

Petro

sorry to insert a serious note in this fun thread, but I have just learned there is an herb called culantro ... used in Puerto Cooking ... since I'm having a bit of a taste problem with the cilantro, I'm wondering if anyone has tried this herb and how it compares. The recipes I find use both.
finally found some semi-decent tomatoes at a semi-decent price and am furiously prepping them for a marathon canning session tomorrow -- at least three heat levels of Annie's salsa and a couple of my chili sauce (which I use in lieu of catsup (or ketchup, or whaterever).

BTW, what was the concensus (how DO you spell that word?) on the cumin ... toasted? ground? last time I just smashed the seeds in my mortar and pestle.

To address many topics in this thread: There are only two in my family, also, but we love salsa, thus the conversion to mostly canning it in quarts. We process for 30 minutes, and use about 1/3 cup of lime juice and 2/3 cup of vinegar for each batch. Salsa keeps so well, we have only lost one to mold when forgotten in the back of the fridge for a LONG time.

Culantro tastes pretty much like cilantro to me. Looks quite different, though, short and spiky. My sister in Florida grows it. I LOVE cilantro, but mine never seems to grow at the right time or quantity for when I need it. I sometimes put some oregano into the salsa just to fill in a bit for cilantro, which I rarely have. I know this sounds funny, but we don't actually purchase much food, so we work with what we have because we compost a lot of produce as it is.

I have been putting lots of cumin in my salsa. We made the peach/tomato roasted hot salsa today, 7 jars plus one jar that is mostly the thick liquid left at the bottom of the pot which we will label chili sauce. REALLY TASTY with our organic homegrown tomatoes, onions, and garlic, but of course every drop was needed to fill the 8 jars (mostly 24 oz. size, one smaller, a couple bigger.) So I had to make do with wiping the bowl and canning funnel and so on off with my finger while eating chips, and then eat some of a different batch of salsa that was in the fridge.

About Led Zep Rules, well, they do, but the thing is all the clever garden names I tried when I signed up were taken already, organic girl and so on. Thus I went another direction entirely, as I do love Led Zeppelin. Got tickets to their final tour just when John Bonham died, so no go there. Finally saw them as Jimmy Page and Robert Plant twice, decades later. They were awesome concerts and extremely Led Zeppelin-like.

Besides all the almost Annie's salsa, hubby and I canned 11 jars of pickled asparagus today, too, and some pickled jalapenos last night. Whew!

Marcia

Wow Marcia! Wish I could get hubby to help me in the kitchen canning. But, the more I think about it, he is helping me by staying out of my way :)

Lesa: That's how my hubby helps too! Sometimes he'll help shucking corn or snapping beans...but that's not actually IN the kitchen! LOL

Marcia: Try freezing some cilantro when it's mature for use in salsa later. Mine is always ready the first part of July and no tomatoes until now....I just chop, measure and freeze in those little ziploc snack sized bags. 1/4 cup each (amount for one batch of Annie's salsa). I can pull out as many as I need. It loses some volume and a little flavor, but it's better than nothing and sure is handy!!

Deanna

Hi again,

Thanks for posting the "twist" recipe again and I appreciate your comments. Always helps to hear or see something that confirms a concern. What is the take on using cornstarch to thicken?

Thanks again,
Laura

Are you speaking of thickening the salsa with cornstarch or using cornstarch to thicken in canning generally?

Cornstarch is not recommended for thickening; the only approved thickener (with the exception of about two tested mustard pickle recipes) is ClearJel. I don't think you'd want to thicken the peach twist salsa anyway. I'm guessing you'd find the viscous texture disappointing.

Carol

Hey guys. I'm brand new to canning having done some dill pickles two weeks ago.....and they are still curing. I love salsa and look forward to trying Annie's Salsa but I have a question. Are the seeds and membrane of the Jalapeños removed? By the way, I enjoy salsas that are picante.

mikey, it's according to how hot you want the salsa..Leaving the seed makes it hotter..MY first batch I used 4 halapenos with out seeds and could hardly taste any warmth.I have made 9 batches so far increasing the warmth.The last I used 7 hala's and 7 haberneros with seeds and used cyannne instead of black pepper...had to have some water standing by to put out the flames on that one!!...lol

You can remove the seedy part of the jalapeños if you like, but the end result is less heat. Usually if you want more heat, you keep them in, or if you are trying to tone it down, you pull the seeds out. We have been using the seeds of our jalapeños, we put in a bunch of them actually, we wanted a nice hot salsa.

As for hubby, I am using the royal we a bit there, he did all the pickled peppers himself, most of the asparagus, and at least half of the salsa. He leaves the jam and fruit sauces to me, but salsa and pickled things are mostly his purview, in that he knows how to do them and doesn't have to worry about something setting. He canned 3 quarts of tomato sauce today. Lest you think he is completely fabulous, I should mention he doesn't clean up very well after himself.

Marcia

Thanks guys. I go for leaving the seeds in. I think I will try cold smoking the jalapeños and toms.

Hello, I didn't realize this forum was here. I've been making freezer jam and dilly beans and would like to try this salsa. I grew up in Arizona and cannot find salsa that I consider edible here in Oregon except the Pico de Gallo at Baja Fresh and Chipolte fast Mex chains. I finally found a decent brand of chips after twenty years of trying.....

I love Cilantro but absolutely detest Bell peppers. They give me terrible indigestion even if cooked.
Will subbing with Poblanos or Anaheims work? They don't bother me.

Hey, buyorsell888, welcome to Oregon AND more importantly the forum!
So, what kind of chips????
If you can find Kettle Sesame Corn chips, give those a whirl! Kettle is, of course, an Oregon company!

Yes, you can sub any kind of peppers you want as long as you keep the quantities of low acid ingredients the same.
You can do more onion, less pepper or vice versa, as long as the total is the same.

Same thing with the acid. You can use any combo of vinegar (at least 5%), lemon or lime juice (bottled only for consistency, not fresh).

This is some good stuff! And flexible enough that you can make it to your liking.

Deanna (just a couple hours south of ya).

Has anybody made this with no heat? I've been reading about Annie's salsa for so long, and it sounds so good -- but I can't tolerate hot peppers at all. Would it be pointless to make it without them? Would the canned mild green chilis maybe add something of the right flavor?

Hello Cloudy. Try a half-batch and see how it works for you. My guess is it will be different but still quite good without peppers at all or with the canned.

Another option would be to play with hot pepper sauce, dried pepper powder (i.e. plain chile powder) or even cracked black peppercorns for a different sort of heat, if those are tolerable.

Carol

Thanks, Carol. I would like to give it a try.

cloudy,

Sure, leave out the jalapenos, and if you like you can add a wee bit more of sweet pepper or herbs or onion --- whatever you DO like --- since it will keep the low-acid ingredients the same!

People who like a lot of heat use LESS bell pepper and MORE hot pepper.

Zabby

Maybe a dash of cumin?

Deanna

" Just a reminder that sugar and paste are totally optional in Annie's recipe. The salsa is safe without those additions and didn't include them in its original incarnation."

When and why did Annie add these? What difference do they make?

Well, I don't know when but Annie added the tomato paste for thickness and the sugar for sweetness. It's totally optional. Some years tomatoes are sweeter than others. You can do what you wish with either.

Carol

Thank you for the welcome.

One brand of chips is Solena and the other is Calidad. Both obscure brands but closest to Arizona Mexican restaurants that I can find here. Chipolte fast Mex restaurant also has outstanding chips. Their food in general is wonderful to my taste. Mexican food is very different in different parts of the Southwest. AZ, NM, CA, TX all have very different tastes. It is really different up here!

Hello buyorsell888. I see you're in Portland. If you get a chance and haven't done so yet, drive south about 35 miles to Woodburn. It's 50% Hispanic and you'll find a number of stores/bakeries etc. in the old part of town.

Carol

Do a little research ahead of that drive and you can hit several Pick Your Own places too.

Deanna

buyorse,

I love Chipotle, too! They don't seem to have any here in Canada, but we go to Cleveland once a year for a craft show and my fave thing about that trip is that the place we stay is right near a Chipotle. I could eat those chips with salsa and guacamole all day....

I met my BF when he lived in New Mexico and I sure did appreciate the food there when I visited. Now he's moved way up north to be with me, I'm growing anaheim peppers so I can cook some of our fave things, maybe one day I'll even surprise him with the "national questio of New Mexico": "red or green?" ;-)

Welcome to the forum. Keep us up on all your harvest adventures!

Zabby

What do you guys think about using tomatillos in place of the cilantro? Turns out I really hate cilantro. Going to try another batch sometime this week.

jt

jt,

I really hate cilantro too! Really, really. I just leave it out. There is no safety consequence, it's not a high acid ingredient. After you make it without the cilantro, you can taste it and decide if you want to add the tomatillos.

Petro

Neighbor left what must be 10 lbs tomatoes on my stoop this morning. A lot of them are cracked with mold and rot starting so guess can't use in canning even if cut away bad parts, but a couple lbs of the paste tomatoes look usable. So I went to wallyworld and bought peaches, tomatillos, parsley and more tomatoes.

Do chopped tomatillos directly replace part of the chopped tomatoes to keep the recipe safe for BWBing? I might add up to a cup if I like how they taste.

jt

Tomatillos are high-acid and can safely be substituted in any recipe calling for tomatoes.

It's nice your neighbor left tomatoes, but I'm sorry to hear most sound good only for the compost pile.

Carol

If you have the time, try grilling the tomatoes and peppers and onions before making the salsa. It's awesome!

I'm a big fan of flame roasted peppers and will give that a try this morning. Maybe the onions too.

Made this motorized basket a few years back especially for roasting pods. Turn on the rotisserie burners plus the bottom burners and there is some serious heat in a hurry. Blister the skin on all sides until starts to split and throw whole mess into a papper bag or other container that can be closed and let set until the skins are easy to peel.

{{gwi:926839}}

Hope to get started in 30 min or so. Don't want to run out of steam like Zabby. :)

jt

Thanks for the idea of using tomatillos for part of the tomatoes. I have tons of tomatillos this year and am looking for something other than straight tomatillo salsa.

Zabby asked if the minced garlic was packed in oil and therefore if it was safe to use ... I don't think anyone answered that (although I may easily have missed the answer), so I am curious .. are they packed in oil?

Do you all really not use cracked tomatoes? Mold I can understand, but usually with cracked tomatoes I just cut away the exposed area and use the rest. Is this a bad practice?

Ann, who loves all the discussions of Annie's salsa !

In answer to the question about the minced garlic, no it is packed in water. Check the label before you buy it, but I buy mine at Save-A-Lot and it is not packed in oil. Use 1/2 teaspoon per clove of garlic. For Annie's Salsa I use 3 teaspoons.

The minced garlic is a great timesaver and I use it in anything that calls for garlic :)

Lesa

Holy smokes what a lot of tomatoes! I started out by getting a 5 gal pot of water boiling to loosen tomato skins and a 3+ gal pot of ice water (mostly cubes) to cool the toms before removing skins. Cored and Xd tomatoes on the bottom and 3 x 3 boiled them just enough so that skin starts to peel before plunging into the ice water. Then after peeling started chopping the toms and putting into a large glass measuring cup sitting on top of more ice. (I'm a big believer in keeping ingredients iced down) Anyways, ended up with 8 cups diced toms from the box my neighbor left me! The vast majority were beefsteaks that were much better condition than my first analysis. Almost 1/3 of that box turned out useable for canning. Others I will salvage by cutting away the bad parts and eating fresh. Many will still hit the compost pile.

I still have 3 lbs of peaches and about 4 lbs of store-bought tomatoes to skin and dice. This might turn into a 2 day project, because not sure have enough sweet peppers. Plenty of hot peppers, onions etc. I just might have to work around the sweets. And have .71 lbs tomatillos want to work into at least one batch. And will slowly add parsley in place of the cilantro.

Blah, blah, blah... just taking a break and rambling on. I have a couple of old Julia Childs DVDs where she would now be having a glass of wine I think to unlax a little. It's a Miller Lite for me. And what do you think Graham Kerr would be doing now?

Back to 'work'.

jt

Graham might be napping....

Lol John :)

I wish I had a neighbor to give me a bunch of tomatoes. It sounds as if you are really really busy :) I'm envious you know :)

Work, work, work now, but this winter you will be very pleased :)

Lesa

I possibly should start a new thread? It's getting long & here is a slight subject change.

Plunged the peaches into boiling water & then into icewater just like the tomatoes and the skin did not loosen like I expected it to. What did I do wrong? Boiled 3 or 4 times longer than would have for tomatoes.

Going to just knife peel the rest so can get on, but just thinking about next time.

jt

Sounds like the peaches may a be a bit green???

Deanna

I am new to this forum. I would like to make this salsa. What is BWB? I am not familiar with this.

I've been to Woodburn, I have customers there. I am a sales rep. Haven't been to any of the Mexican food stores though. There are actually several near my house but haven't been yet.

DH is excited to try this salsa. We made some many years ago that was awful and haven't tried again. Going to have to buy tomatoes though. We don't have many that are ripe.

BWB is boiling water bath, I think. A canning process.

katydidd:

Welcome to the forum! Jump right in, this a great group!

Yes, BWB is boiling water bath. A process where jars filled with food and capped are placed in a large pot and covered with 1-2" of water and boiled for a specified amount of time heat and seal for shelf-stable storage. Sometimes called HWB or Hot Water Bath too.

Pressure Canning is a different process.

Deanna

john,

SO, how did the salsa turn out?

(I agree that the peaches were prob. not ripe enough if the skins didn't come off. You can use a veggie peeler if need be but what a mess!)

I chopped the onions and toms for another double batch last night while my tomato sauce was processing --- gotta get it made soon as we're leaving for the weekend this evening.

Ann and Lesa, thanks for re-asking and then answering my query about the garlic --- I always just assumed it was packed in oil, never even checked the ingredients list on what I buy, DUH! I usually chop/grate my own fresh if I'm making something to be used uncooked, but if cooking it for a while anyway I find the pre-chopped just as good!

Cheers,

Z

I have been reading this and I have a rather different
question. I do alot of canning, but I do not put my jars
into boiling water bath. I put my lids in hot boiling water and they seal and I have not had any trouble with them not sealing. Is this something that you need to do with salsa. Thanks for your help. OrDella

That's an older method called Open Kettle.
It's no longer widely used and NOT recommended.
It doesn't get the product in the jar hot enough to be safe.

Just because something is sealed, doesn't mean it's safe.
Lot's of people did it for years. Lot's lived to tell about it, but why take the chance?

Just follow a tested recipe from a reliable source and you'll have no worries!

Deanna

The seal is also weaker with open kettle canning, so it decreases shelf life and increases the odds of spoilage or micro-organisms like mold.

Carol

Zabby,

The whole cloves (Spice World) peeled garlic that I buy in 3 lb containers aren't packed in anything. The minced garlic (I don't buy anymore) is packed in olive oil. Garlic remains the only thing that I have been unable to ferment by itself. Really convinced me just how good its anti-bacterial qualities are.

Salsa......

Subbing chopped parsley leaves for the cilanto really helped for me.

Yesterday batch #1

4 cups tomatoes
4 cups peaches
1 1/2 cups sweet onion
1 1/2 cups green bell pepper
1 Biker Billy jalapeño
2 Bhut Jolokia peppers (very hot)
7 garlic cloves
2 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1/8 cup canning salt
1/8 cup parsley
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup lemon juice
15 oz can tomato sauce
12 oz can tomato paste
BWB for 15 min = 6 pints

Batch #2

8 cups tomatoes
4 cups peaches
2 1/4 cups green bell pepper
2 tbs manzano pepper powder (hot)
10 garlic cloves
3 1/4 cups sweet onions
1 tbs cumin seeds
1 tbs fresh ground black pepper
3/16 cup canning salt
3 tbs parsley
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1 cup lemon juice
15 oz can tomato sauce
12 oz can tomato paste
BWB for 15 min = 7 pints and aprox 2 for the fridge to be frozen today.

I forgot the tomatillos and will just chop them into the 2 or so pints that I'm going to freeze. Or I might pressure process them.

The peach skin didn't seem to hurt a thing. The peaches were a bit hard, but I liked the flavor and they sure diced nicely in my new onion dicer. Tomatoes are the only thing that I have to dice by hand and they took forever as I am so stinking slow at things like that.

Thanks again, Annie!!

jt

Holy smokes, this is still going?

John, I love the label. And just for the record, I'm 52, that picture was taken this April. Yeah, I'm the grandmotherly type. (grin)

And yesterday I canned 18 pints of my own salsa. No matter what Deanna says, I get 6 pints. I made a triple batch and sure enough, 18 pints total!

Annie

I'll bet ya weren't hungry when you were done either!

Either that or Ashley was there to blame it on!
. .
. .
. .
. DARRFFC (Ducking And Running Really Fast For Cover)
Deanna

Hi Annie!

I made labels, but all they do is list the ingredients. (so far)

Ended up adding 1 1/2 cups ea diced tomatillos & onions along with some niblets corn to the refrigerated extra from batch #2 and pressure canned. Made 4 12 oz jelly jars.

And yesterday got a box of home-grown tomatillos from a chile-head friend in Maine! Cisneros, Toma Verde & a third kind with no name. 2.25 lbs of them. That will be abt 3.2 cups when diced. So will be making more salsa today or tomorrow. Going to use turtle beans and corn in this batch, but haven't worked out the recipe yet. I think black bean salsa is traditionally made with shoepeg corn.

jt

Just got done with a 5X batch of the original Annie's salsa -- somewhat modified to include roasted garlic and roasted bell peppers. This year we tried something new -- we added three Ghost peppers. I'm not sure if the heat will survive the actual processing. So many so-called "hot peppers" lose their burn once cooked. Only jalapenos it seems, hold onto that heat -- but even some of that is lost during the processing.

We let our 5X batch boil for about 40 minutes. We'll put them through the pressure canner process for about 25 minutes.

Always makes for great salsa! And it's been tested by a food safety lab here on the West Coast. It passed with flying colors! The pH was right on the money (3.81). Standard Plate Count test came in at less than 100. No pathogens to speak of.

Seems hard to believe we've been canning this recipe for going on six or seven years....

Here is a link that might be useful: Roasted Garlic, Pepper and Heirloom Tomato Salsa (a riff on Annie's Salsa)