Making Salsa

The other day I needed to make salsa. I had about 10 of these white beauty tomatoes (they look yellow to me, but what do I know?) I also had baskets and baskets of grape tomatoes. These aren't your garden variety grape tomatoes either (that phrase loses its effectiveness when speaking to a bunch of gardeners). They are ginormous! (pronounced GI-nor-mus)

All summer I have been making pico de gallo, fresh salsa, cooked salsa, plus dozens eaten fresh of these grape tomatoes. It was simply a 1.99 4-pack from Hy-Vee. These plants saved me when the rest of my tomato plants were doing nothing most of the summer. I believe the rest of the plants think it is very humorous to start ripening up now that I am back to work and have little time to spend canning.

For example, I went to work today, stayed late, went to the grocery store, and then got home about 7. I had to decide between using my remaining daylight hours to go exercise, or to pick tomatoes and work in the garden. I had to choose the walk, because I knew I wouldn't get to walk again until at least Wednesday or Thursday. So now I am going to have to get up at 5 in the morning, so I have time to pick tomatoes before work in the morning. I'm sure the mud smears on my legs will go very nicely with my new skirt.

Thus far, I have been able to make two batches of my hot red salsa, plus a batch of salsa verde, plus an experimental yellow salsa. The white/yellow tomatoes were so big I didn't have to use very many to fill up the pot with chunks. I leave the skins and seeds in, they are healthy, and I don't mind seeing them in the salsa. I know some people go to a lot of trouble to peel the skins and remove the seeds, but I think that is too much work just to make it look fancier. I think it tastes just fine with them in. The yellow salsa looked very funny while I was cooking it down.

It looked like pineapple stew. I put in yellow bell peppers, plus white onions. I had to put in one red onion and some green hot peppers, but you can hardly tell. It turned out really good. Like the salsa verde, it is sweet, then hot. I even put some habanaros in the last two batches. I ended up getting quite a bit, considering it is mostly me that eats it. My son is starting to like salsa, so that may impact how fast it gets used up.

This last batch made 4 quarts of red salsa and 3 1/2 quarts of yellow salsa. I had so many tomatoes, I also made several pints of diced tomatoes with basil and oregano. I only wish I could make enough pasta sauce to last through the winter as well.

My little helper likes to pretend cook. He helped me scoop up all the cut tomato pieces and put them into the pot. He thought the yellow salsa was delicious. I will take that as the highest compliment.