In Mexican cooking, the main use for dried chiles is to reconstitute them by soaking in hot water, then make a cooked sauce with them. Are your own chiles ripe when you make salsa with them? If so, I wonder if your dried chiles could be reconstituted and used instead of fresh chiles in your salsa.

Jim

Jim, I typically use a combination of ripe and unripe chilies. These Hatch chilies were purchased, dirt cheap; I couldn't resist.

Deborah

I do not know about the safety with canning but you could try making the salsa, canning it and then adding the dried chilies when you open the salsa, letting them sit in the salsa liquid to reconstitute.

Alton brown has a recipe for homemade chili powder using dried chilis. I've experimented using different kinds. I'm sure you could make hatch chili powder

Tishtoshnm, Kastle, I'm sorry I didn't respond to you sooner, but we lost our phones, and therefore our internet on Friday evening. They've only just been restored.

I do plan on making powder with some of the chilies, it's just that I'm low on fresh chilies and at the market they're very dear. I so wanted to make more salsa without spending the earth for fresh chilies. My homegrown chilies are pathetic this year. I think it's because we had a very wet spring and cool summer.

Thanks for your trouble.
Deborah