Salsa Perfection

September 8, 2013September 3, 2014Caitlin 5 Comments

OK so I probably shouldn’t have called my first salsa the “best ever” as this leaves no room for improvement. So since I don’t wanna be a bad canning mama and pick my favourite child I am calling this one “salsa perfection.” Best and perfect sound pretty equivalent to me, right? Phew, dodged that bullet. Anyways, I digress. This recipe is what we did with the other 30 pounds of tomatoes from the tomato extravaganza that was last night. This salsa has more peppers than the first recipe I posted, so if you like your salsa more peppery this is the one for you! This recipe comes from PNW 395, one of my favourite publications! It’s the Chile salsa, bottom of page 9.

Ingredients:

10 cups peeled, cored, chopped tomatoes
6 cups seeded, chopped chili peppers (use some hot and some mild, or sub in some green bell peppers and some jalapenos like we did – 6 cups total of all peppers you use though)
4 cups chopped onions
1 cup vinegar
1 tbsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp dry cumin (optional)
1 tsp dry oregano (optional)

As above the recipe will yield 7-9 pints.

Here is what we did:

Core, blanch and peel, the tomatoes. I learned from last time to blanch them for just a short 30 seconds or so, that way they don’t get soggy/cooked. Core 6 or 8 and plop them in boiling water.

Then throw them straight into ice water and repeat. Only leave them in the boiling water for the short time it takes to quickly peel the 6 or 8 and then they don’t get soggy.

Look at all those beautiful naked tomatoes!

Dice the tomatoes. Do a fairly course dice because they will break down a bit when they are boiled. We had 48 cups from the 30 pounds, so we did 4.8x the recipe, multiplying through for the other ingredients. Chop up the onions and peppers. Try and cut the peppers and onions in similarly sized pieces. Wear gloves for the hot ones! Remove the seeds and veins from hot peppers or add just some of them, depending on how hot you like your salsa. I like to keep a bowl of the seeds set aside so I can make some batches hotter than others and label the lids accordingly.

We had to do this in multiple batches since my stock pot is 12 quarts and we had about 1.5x that. But if you are normal and not doing a mondo batch, mix all the ingredients in your stock pot. Honestly, I wouldn’t recommend the mondo batch. It takes to long to boil so gets watery. Do one batch, get it in the canner, and repeat. I did it that way the next time I did a huge salsa batch and was much happier. Still make a ton of salsa though. Just do it in batches or multiple pots. Anyways, add all the tomatoes, peppers, onions, vinegar and spices. A fun fact about salsa is that if you don’t like the vinegar flavour you can sub lemon or lime juice in equal quantities if you prefer. Or a different vinegar like cider vinegar (we used white vinegar but both are tasty). Just make sure whatever vinegar you use is 5% acidity. You can also add more or less salt, or other dried spices. Just DO NOT alter the ratios of the veggies. And be careful if you do giant batches like this that you get all the ratios right, it is easy to screw up and make something unsafe if you aren’t careful and paying attention. Another good reason to do one batch, get it in the canner, and repeat.

Bring the salsa to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. While bringing it to the boil prepare the canner, jars and lids. I prefer the wide mouth pints for dipping! Once it’s been boiling for 10 minutes it is ready to be put it the hot jars!

Fill the jars leaving a half inch head space. Wipe rims, apply lids and tighten bands finger tip tight. Place in the canner covered by at least 1-2 inches of water. Bring to a full rolling boil and process for 15 minutes. After the 15 minutes turn off the heat, remove the canner lid, wait 5 minutes and remove the jars to a towel or hot pad. Count the pings as the jars seal! Below you can see we had both of our canners going with 8 jars a piece and still had almost a full pot left of salsa! What an excellent batch! Took 4 full canner loads plus 2.5 jars for the fridge – 34.5 delicious pints of salsa! If this pressure canner picture is confusing you, it’s just because I use my pressure canner as a water bath canner too, I didn’t pressure can this.

12-24 hours later check the seals, remove the rings, wipe down the jars and label and store. Lately I’ve been noting the page number or source of the recipe on the label too so maybe by next year I really can pick a favourite. 😉

My share of the bounty! mmmm mmmm good.

Zesty Zucchini Relish

September 4, 2013March 25, 2014Caitlin 4 Comments

If you have zucchinis growing in your garden, by mid summer you are probably desperate like me for new and exciting ways to use them up. This zucchini relish, modified from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving is a delicious way to do just that. I am not a huge fan of the sweet commercial relishes, so tried a small batch of this at first, but it is so good (not sweet, it has a nice ZESTY flavour). I had to make more! Awesome on hot dogs or sausages!

Ingredients:
12 cups finely chopped zucchini
4 cups chopped onions
2 red bell peppers, finely chopped
1 green bell pepper, finely chopped
1/3 cup of canning salt
2.5 cups granulated sugar
2.5 cups white vinegar
1 tbsp ground nutmeg
1 tbsp ground turmeric
1 chili pepper, including seeds, chopped

The recipe also calls for 4 tbsp prepared horseradish, but I find horseradish’s flavour screams “Hi I am horseradish, I am ALL you can taste,” so I leave it out. If you like it though, it could be a nice addition to the recipe. Makes about 5 pints.

Here is what I did:

Finely chop the zucchini. 12 cups took me freaking forever though, so I might recommend trying to whip this up in a food processor. I just like the little cubes, but it was a lot of chopping.

Chop the green and red bell pepper, onion and mix them together with the zucchini and the salt.

Cover and leave in a cool place overnight (12 ish hours).

The next day, rinse the mixture off in a colander. Squeeze out as much moisture as you can. Get your hands in there and squeeze a handful at a time, and put it in a pot.

Add the vinegar, sugar, chili pepper, turmeric and nutmeg (and if you want horseradish) and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.

Continue to boil the relish over medium heat. After about 45 minutes or so it should be a pretty good consistency.

While the mixture is boiling down, prepare the canner, jars and lids.

Fill the jars, leaving a half inch heat space. Debubble the jars, wipe the rims, place on the lids and tighten the bands finger tip tight. Processing time is 15 minutes for this recipe. Place the jars in the canner covered by at least 1-2 inches of water. Bring to a full rolling boil. After the 15 minutes, turn off the heat, remove the canner lid and wait 5 minutes before removing the jars to a hot pad or towel. Listen to the delightful ping of the jars sealing!

Mmmmmm relish.

*This post contains affiliate links. Check out the “About the Blogger” page for more information.

Tomato Leather

September 3, 2013September 16, 2013Caitlin Leave a comment

My lovely man gave me a dehydrator for my birthday, so when we were making tomato sauce we decided to experiment with using the skins for something – tomato leather!

All we really did for this recipe was wring out as much of the excess liquid as we could and place the the skins in a nice even layer on the dehydrator trays. With the skins from 22 pounds of tomatoes we filled two trays. We seasoned it with lots of garlic powder, cayenne, salt and pepper. We turned the dehydrator on to 135 F, and left it overnight.

In the morning it was cripsy goodness! The tray that we had put on the fruit roll sheet wasn’t fully dry on the bottom so I transferred it just to the regular tray and left it another couple hours.

When dry, I cracked them up into pieces and put them in a plastic bag for a snack later. It actually tastes pretty good, I wasn’t sure what to expect, and it’s good for you!

Tomato Sauce

September 2, 2013August 17, 2014Caitlin 2 Comments

The tomatoes are still flowing in like crazy so the next great mission was tomato sauce! There are a TON of great tomato sauce recipes out there, so I hope for this to be one of many delish recipes I post. Another favourite from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. If you are looking for it, it’s the Italian style sauce in the book.

Ingredients:

8 cups of fresh plum tomato purée
2/3 cup finely chopped onion
2/3 cup finely chopped celery
1/2 cup finely chopped carrot
2 cloves garlic
4 tbsp bottled lemon juice
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp finely ground black pepper
1/2 tsp hot pepper flakes
herbs (oregano, basil, parsley, rosemary) to taste

As written above this recipe makes about 3 pints. I had 22 pounds of tomatoes for this mission, which when pureed was 28 cups of purée. So we did a batch about 3.5x this recipe.

Here is what we did:

Tomato sauces are a lot more manageable with a friend, so Kiki and I set off on another tomatoey adventure. We also invited another good friend – VICTORIO!

If you plan to do a lot of sauces, pastes, purées etc. a Victorio strainer is an awesome investment. Plus, it’s so fun to use! Assemble your strainer. Wash and quarter the tomatoes and chuck them into the hopper! Plunge and crank those delicious babies through the strainer.

All the good stuff comes flowing out the front and the “waste” gets pooped out the side. This is the skins and seeds, stuff you’d rather not have in a good sauce. BUT see my dehydrating post for something to do with the skins if you want to use the whole tomatoes!

Tomatoes can be really juicy, even romas, so I like to reduce them for at least an hour or two. Measure the juice and reduce it either in a pot on the burner, or in the oven. I put the juices in a bunch of trays and reduce it in the oven at 300F. If you are just doing a single batch though, this recipe does reduce fine on the burner. Combine the chopped veggies with a cups of the tomato juice and boil for about 5 minutes. Then add 1 cup of juice at a time so you can maintain the boil. When doing a large batch I like to do a combo of the two methods, reducing some of the juice in the oven first.

Once all the tomato business is dealt with, chop up the carrots, onions, celery and garlic. Or perhaps you did this recipe the other way and already added them. I like them pretty finely chopped, but it’s up to you. Try for consistent sizes so they are cooked evenly.

Get everything boiling over medium high heat. I did this first with a fraction of the tomatoes, while leaving the rest to reduce in the oven. As the trays in the oven become reduced enough, add them to the main pot. However you want to do it is fine, then reduce it until your desired thickness, about by a third or so. Add seasonings if you desire, the garlic, salt, pepper, hot pepper flakes and lemon juice. SAFETY NOTE: The lemon juice is added to make this recipe safe for hot water bath canning. Make sure you have measured how much tomato juice and everything else you added so you can add enough lemon juice. And don’t add more carrots, onion and/or celery than the recipe calls for. I wouldn’t want you to give your family botulism!

While the sauce is reducing and cooking, prepare the canner, jars and lids.

Fill the jars leaving a 1/2 inch head space. De-bubble the jars, wipe the rims, and place on the lids and bands, finger tip tight.

I had 10 pints almost exactly – the capacity of the canner. It’s a canning miracle!

Place the jars in the canner, covered by at least 1-2 inches of water. Bring to a full rolling boil and process for 35 minutes. Following the 35 minute time, turn off the heat, remove the canner lid, let cool for 5 minutes and remove the jars onto a towel or hot pad. Listen for the 10 pings!!

Let them cool for 12-24 hours. Check the seal and wipe the jars down.

Label, store and enjoy!

*this post contains affiliate links, please see the “About the Blogger” page for more information

Best Ever Salsa!

August 26, 2013August 18, 2014Caitlin 4 Comments

Tomato season is here at last, and that of course means salsa season! So yesterday I grabbed my good pal Kiki, picked all my red tomatoes and set out to make some salsa. I first made this salsa last year and it was so delicious it had to be the first thing I used tomatoes for this year. This recipe is from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. Warning, if you make this salsa you will never want to eat store bought salsa again!

The recipe as listed below makes around 5 pint jars of salsa.

Ingredients:
7 cups peeled, chopped, cored tomatoes
2 cups coarsely chopped onion
1 cup coarsely chopped green bell pepper
8 jalapeño peppers, seeded and finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 can (5.5 oz) tomato paste
3/4 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup cilantro, loosely packed and finely chopped
1/2 tsp ground cumin

Reminder: salsa is one of those foods that can be borderline acidic enough for hot water bath canning, so never alter the ratios in a recipe. It is not safe, for example, to add extra peppers because they reduce the overall acidity. Adding more vinegar for acidity can compensate, but never “guesstimate,” look for a trusted and tested recipe if you like a different ratio of ingredients in salsa.

How to make it:

Keeping true with my large batch style of canning, I picked every single red tomato in my garden for this canning session. I have an array of Roma varieties ready and had around 27 pounds when all was said and done. After peeling and chopping we had 33 cups of tomatoes! So we did about 4.7x the recipe as written, which it turns out is pretty much the capacity of my stock pot. To simmer the mixture I actually ended up spreading it out over a couple pots and mixing it all back together at the end.

The biggest task for this recipe is to peel and chop the tomatoes. This is exponentially easier if you first blanch them. If you want, cut a small x in the bottom of the tomato.

Toss them in boiling water for 30-60 seconds.

Then into ice water. The skins on these Roma’s came off so easily, which makes for a happy canning session.

Chop the tomatoes, onions, peppers and garlic. Make sure to wear gloves to chop the jalapenos! A little bit of jalapeno seeds really go a long way in this recipe so I like to leave the seeds and veins aside and add them in to taste when I get all the ingredients together.

Mix all the ingredients in a large stock pot. I am actually not a huge cilantro fan, so I leave it out of this recipe or add a little parsley instead.

Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes or so to cook the veggies and thicken the mixture.

While the salsa is cooking, prepare the canner, jars and lids. I like to use wide mouth pints for this because then I can easily dip a chip right into the jar. When the salsa is done, fill the jars leaving a half inch head space. Wipe the rims, place the lids on, and tighten the bands finger tip tight.

Place the jars in the canner covered by at least 1-2 inches if water. Process jars for 20 minutes, beginning the timer when your hot water bath canner reaches a full rolling boil. After the 20 minutes, turn off the heat, remove the canner lid, wait 5 minutes then remove your jars to a cloth or hot pad on the counter, leaving at least a couple inches between them. Listen to all the jars sealing!

For this giant batch of salsa, we ended up with 22 pints, plus a half pint left over for eats. This took 3 canner loads because only 8 wide mouth pints fit in my canner, so just keep the salsa simmering in between if you do more than one load.

Enjoy any little bit left over! Mmm. Although, I think if you leave it a couple weeks for the flavours to commingle it tastes even better. Deeeelish!

*This post contains affiliate links. Check out the “About the Blogger” page for more information.

Rhubarb Strawberry Pie Filling

August 23, 2013March 25, 2014Caitlin 2 Comments

I thought my first canning post should be one of my most favourite recipes that I have canned many times, so we will start with Rhubarb Strawberry Pie Filling. This recipe is modified from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving which is one of my favourite canning books.

I tend to be a “go big or go home” type of canner so I like to do more than the recipe calls for, but sometimes (like in the case of jam) that isn’t always the best idea. Here, however, as long as you have a big enough pot I think it’s totally the way to do it. I’ll write the proportions as in the book, but I did just over 1.5x the recipe for this venture, which yielded just over 4 quarts. As written the recipe will make 5 pints.

Ingredients:

3 large apples (a good cooking variety) peeled, cored and finely chopped
1 tbsp grated orange zest
1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
7 cups sliced rhubarb
2 cups granulated sugar
4 cups halved hulled strawberries

Here’s what I did:

Prepare the canner, jars and lids. I prefer to put pie fillings into quart jars since I use a quart for a pie, but it’s nice to prepare a smaller jar too in case the yield isn’t exact or you want a pint full for a crumble or something.

I like to cut all the rhubarb up first. Since I have it in my yard I harvest as much as I think the plant can handle (they say to harvest no more than 1/3 to 1/2 of the plant at a time so it can recover). Then I calculate how much I need of all my other ingredients based on how much rhubarb I have. Then I just eat the leftover strawberries since I always buy (or better yet you-pick) too many. For buying purposes, one good sized stalk of rhubarb when cut up is just a little more than a half cup. Cut the rhubarb into about one inch pieces.

Peel and core the apples and chop them very finely. Juice and zest the orange and combine with the apple in a large stainless steel pot. Stir to coat the apples then add in the chopped rhubarb and sugar.

Over medium-high heat bring this mixture to a boil. Stir constantly and boil until the rhubarb becomes soft, but not to the point that it turns to mush, about 10-12 minutes.

Add the strawberries and return to a boil.

mmmm pie filling.

Remove the mixture from the burner.

Fill the hot jars, leaving a one inch head space.

Once you have removed any air bubbles and adjusted your head space, place your lids on the jar, tighten the band finger tip tight, and place the jars in your hot water bath canner.

Ensure the jars are covered by at least 1-2 inches of water. Cover and bring to a boil. The processing time for this recipe is 15 minutes. Begin timing once the water reaches a full rolling boil.

Once the 15 minutes is up, turn off the heat and remove the canner lid. Wait 5 minutes then remove the jars from the canner. Listen for the delightful sound of your jars sealing! When the jars are fully cool (12-24 hours), remove the bands, wipe the jars clean, label the lids, and store in a cool, dark place for up to a year. Enjoy a delicious pie whenever you desire!

*This post contains affiliate links. Check out the “About the Blogger” page for more information.

Welcome!

August 23, 2013August 23, 2013Caitlin 1 Comment

Hello blogging world!

Welcome to my blog. I would like to start off with a shout out to my dear pal Laura who named this blog for me. When she suggested the name I just couldn’t get it out of my head, so here I am – The Babbling Botanist.

Anyways, I am a botanist as you may have guessed, and this blog will be about all things botanical in nature. This will include lots about canning! One of my favourite things to do with plants is to put them in jars and eat them. I also hope to include fun botanical things such as plant profiles with fun facts about plants, some gardening tips from my experiences, other things you can do with plants such as natural homemade cleaning and cosmetic products, and just some general babbling.

Thanks for reading!

the babbling botanist

a blog about food preservation and other botanical adventures – because plants are cool!

Salsa Perfection

Zesty Zucchini Relish

Tomato Leather

Tomato Sauce

Best Ever Salsa!

Rhubarb Strawberry Pie Filling

Welcome!

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: