Harvesting the Bounty: Our CSA Recipes Part 1, Chinacat Salsa

It's that time of year.... The CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) club we're in has peaked! Last week we brought home a truckload of tomatoes and peppers peppers peppers! and so it's SALSA time again!

Last year was my first canning/jarring experience. It was grand. Despite learning a valuable lesson about shielding my eyes, nose, and nails from those spicy peppers, and burning myself once or twice on that steam from the boiling jars, I had a very successful yield of about twenty jars of salsa that became our family Christmas presents! I sampled several recipes in order to use all our vegetables, and chopped my heart out.... this is what we came up with:

Chinacat Salsa**
12 cups* cored, chopped tomatoes [i use some yellow tomatoes to sweeten it up]
*(or about 14-15 medium toms)
2 12 ounce cans organic tomato paste
3 cups (or 4medium) chopped onions
2 cups lemon juice (or 8medium lemons squeezed)
8-10 jalepenos, seeded, finely chopped
4-6 long green or red chiles, seeded, chopped
1 Tbs salt
1Tbs sugar
1 Tbs cumin
2 Tbs red pepper flakes (or leave the seeds of 2 peppers)

3 Tbs oregano
4-5 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 tsp black pepper

Combine all** in large saucepan, bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Ladle hot into jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Apply lids and boil in water canner or double boiler for 15min at 0-1000 ft alt., 20 min at 1001-6000 ft, and 25 minutes above 6,000. Yields about 8 pint jars.

**I split this recipe in two and make one milder and one hotter, and have even burnt the bottom and scraped it in for a mesquite flavor. So mix it up!

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