Chunky Tomato Salsa

Salsa is expensive so I try to make our own. The recipe I made last year was too vinegary and thin for our taste, so I tried a different one yesterday.

Chunky Tomato Salsa

For a step-by-step explanation of the salsa canning process, including a tip for easy tomato deskinning, see Pick Your Own’s recipe, on which this one is based. Mine is a halved from what theirs is.

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Ingredients:
10 lbs. tomatoes, preferably Roma, skinned, deseeded and drained
1½ C. onions, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
½ T. fresh oregano, chopped
½ C. diced fresh mild peppers such as Bell or banana
¼ C. diced fresh cilantro
1/8 C. diced fresh celery (about two large stalks)
2 jalapeno peppers, diced (1 if you want milder salsa)
1 T. salt (optional)
¼ t. ground black pepper
2 cans tomato paste
½ C. 5% apple cider vinegar
½ T. ground cumin
1½ t. turmeric
½ t. lemon juice
1 t. chili powder (omit for milder salsa)
2 T. corn starch (omit for thinner salsa)

Method:
Chop tomatoes into approximately ½-inch cubes. Dice, chop or mince all other ingredients in food processor. Put tomatoes in stock pot. If thicker salsa is desired, mix corn starch into vinegar before adding. Add all other ingredients and bring just to boiling.

Fill jars, allowing ¼ inch head space. Process in boiling hot-water bath for at least 35 minutes, depending on altitude.

Yield: About 5 pints

Tasty Cucumber Relish

Last year I looked for a cucumber relish recipe online. I found the best relish I've ever eaten.

If you’ve never canned or pickled, PaulNoll.com gives excellent step-by-step instructions, complete with photos, of how to make the relish.

Hubby and I have made some changes to the recipe.

Here is our version.

Tasty Cucumber Relish

Vegetables
6 lbs. grated or chopped cucumbers
1 grated white onion
1 grated carrot
10 chopped or grated medium bell peppers (if possible, include some red, yellow and/or orange peppers for better color)

Mix together. Grating will make a coarser relish than chopping will.

Brine
1 T. turmeric
1/2 C. salt
8 C. water

Mix together.

Pour brine over vegetables. Stir well and let sit for 3 hours. Drain. Cover with water and let stand for 1 hour. Drain, refill with water and drain again.

Syrup
1 T. mustard seed
1 T. cinnamon
1 t. ground cloves
2 t. allspice
2 C. brown sugar
4 C. cider vinegar

Mix and bring to boil, then pour over vegetables. Let stand 10-12 hours.

Boil before filling prepared jars, leaving 1/2 inch head space. Make sure liquid covers vegetable mix. Process in water bath for 10 minutes.

Makes about 7 pint jars.

Our cucumbers are bearing prolifically right now, so we tripled the recipe this time. I thought I had enough for four batches, but the 23 lbs. I started with became 19 lbs. by the time I removed the ends and blemishes from the cucumbers and deseeded large the ones.

Unfortunately, our peppers aren’t keeping up with the cukes, so I had to buy 34 peppers at the grocery store. The cashier’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head when she saw how many peppers I had in the cart. (We’ll freeze the unused peppers.)

We mixed the recipe in storage containers because we had no other containers large enough.

The Frugal Gardener always feels so virtuous when she preserves her own food!

Cinnamon Sweet Pickles

No pickles taste better than this recipe Mother got from her neighbor. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time or really the space to do this recipe. I sure hope someone who reads this does.

When we went through our mother’s possessions after she passed away, my sister-in-love said, "We'd better enjoy these pickles while we can because I doubt that either of us has the time to make them again."

Start recipe on Thursday for scheduling.

Day 1 – 2 gal. cucumbers, peeled, seeded, cut into strips. Dissolve 2 C. dehydrated lime in enough water to cover pickles. Put in roasting pan. Let stand 24 hours with tight cover.

Day 2 – Drain and wash with cool water. Soak in cool water 3 hours. Drain. Mix 1 C. vinegar, 1 T. alum, 1 1 oz. bottle red food coloring, enough water to cover pickles. Pour over pickles. Heat and simmer 2 hours. Drain. Mix 3 C. vinegar, 3 C. water, 10 C. sugar, 8 sticks cinnamon, 1 lb. cinnamon red hots. Boil. Pour over pickles and reheat. Let stand overnight.

Day 3 – Drain, saving juice. For three mornings, reheat juice and pour back over pickles.

Day 6 – The fourth morning, reheat pickles in juice. Pack and seal in hot wide mouth jars. Water bath 5 minutes. Do not use aluminum or stainless steel pans. Makes 11-12 pts.

Mother’s notes: For Day 1 lime and Day 2 cold water, I found the big square Tupperware [cake taker] worked well. Day 2 on, I used the rectangle roaster when it was time to cook. I prepared the red hots solution in the Dutch oven and poured over cucumbers. For Days 3-5, I drained the juice from roaster into Dutch oven, reheated it and poured it back over cukes. Day 6 I just heated in the roaster, put in juice, water bathed after treating lids in aluminum pan.

Now I feel nostalgic. I can just see those red slices in one of her relish trays. I can taste them, too, a kind of sweet, hot, crunchy sensation in my mouth. Sigh.

Spectacular Frozen Corn

This is my mother's recipe for the best frozen corn ever.

17-18 C. corn cut from cob
1 lb. butter (do not substitute margarine)
1 pt. half-and-half
Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour. Stir occasionally. Requires LARGE roasting pans to make. Spread out on cookie sheets and freeze until solid, usually 2-3 days. Then put into freezer containers and freeze until ready to eat.

I am hungry already. Bring on the sweet corn!

Don't Fence Me In!

Marilyn's post yesterday reminded me of the truck farm my brother and I worked when we were at home. (This picture was taken in 1994, after we were both married. Truck farm was much smaller by then.) We didn't live on a farm, but my mother had grown up on the farm. She was still a farm girl at heart. She could not and would not abide laziness. She had the world's longest to-do list and she intended for it to be completed.

We had plenty of chores, including lots of garden ones. After baking in the hot sun while doing tasks I hated, I decided I would NEVER have a garden when I grew up. No way. Not going to do it.

Never say never.

My mother was very frugal, partly from necessity and partly from preference. She hated waste and unnecessary spending. So she had a huge garden full of all kinds of vegetables. Being hyper organized, she kept a meticulous garden book, noting where she had planted each crop and what varieties she used. I prize that book now, but I don't keep one.

Her garden rows seemed infinite when we were pulling weeds or other boring tasks under the beating sun. And she could always find weeds that we never saw. I learned to love mulching because it suppressed those horrible weeds.

Late summer and early fall was canning/freezing time. She ran a regular factory in the basement, but putting up our produce was the reward for nasty tasks like weeding. I entered into food preservation whole-heartedly. Looking at neat rows of produce-filled jars was always a pleasurable experience. Eating them was even better!

How I miss eating her frozen corn recipe, which will appear tomorrow, and her very labor-intensive red hot pickle recipe, which will appear the next day.

When I lived in Virginia, a friend from upstate New York invited me to her house for Thanksgiving. I continually longed for farm country and she said we would pass through lots of farm country.

Our ideas of what farm country meant were diametrically opposed. We drove roads that were lined with houses. Their lots were long and narrow. Their houses sat next to the road with large gardens behind them. She said those were farms. What farms?

My idea of a farm is acres of corn, wheat, milo and/or sunflowers. Anything else is a just a repeat of my mother's garden. In my idea of farm country, the neighbors can't look into each other's windows just as they could in suburbia!

I thought of the Roy Rogers song "Don't Fence Me In".

"... Let me ride through the wide open country that I love,
Don't fence me in.
Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees
Send me off forever but I ask you please,
Don't fence me in..."