Salsa

I love salsa. The dance and the condiment. It's yummy, it's spicy....I could eat it with a spoon. I grew up in the desert southwest where chili is a food group and spicy goes with everything. So what else would we have done with our first large tomato harvest than make six jars of salsa? 

Most of the ingredients came right from our garden. The tomatoes, the onions, the garlic and some of the jalapenos. We only have one jalapeno bush so we had to use some store bought. We also bought our tomatillos at the local market as our plants have yet to flower. Some salt, some cumin and a bit of cilantro....perfecto! We had a HUGE POT of yummy, homemade salsa just begging for a taco.

  
My hubby's momma is in town and she helped. Not only was it nice to have an extra set of hands for blanching and coring all those tomatoes, she helped us learn to use our pressure canner. She threw us helpful hints like "don't take the lid off mid-can or you're blow yourself up" and "keep an eye on your pressure gauge so you don't blow yourself up." I guess there are lots of ways to blow yourself up while pressure canning! It was lovely to have her as always and with her assistance we now have six yummy jars of homemade, homegrown (almost) salsa tucked into the pantry. It is immensely satisfying to stand back and know that we grew it, we canned it, and now we will eat it. I doubt they'll last long!