Salsa Extravaganza

I wanted to learn how to make salsa this year. So I asked Sharan, my dear, wonderful Mother in Law, to teach me. I was really excited about it and if you know me then you may know that I often take on big projects that are over my head. I can't just do a small project, I don't know why!?!

Well I began by ordering 50lbs of tomatoes, 25lbs of red peppers and 5lbs of Jalapenos. I knew that this was quite a lot but I really like salsa. So it didn't look like as much when it was all in its nice little boxes but when I began to dump it out onto my kitchen table and work at peeling all those tomaotes it was a different story.

It was a lot of work but I really had an amazingly fun time. I am grateful to Sharan for teaching me and for my Young Women for coming to help me. It was so appreciated! There was lots of cutting, peeling, chopping, measuring, stirring and tasting. It took a lot of work to get it spicy enough. It didn't help that we began by de-seeding all of our Jalepenos, as we could have used those seeds to add some heat! But we managed to make a few batches that were about medium heat.

I was so amazed to see as I washed and organized all of the jars that something so simple could be so beautiful. They seemed like little treasures, all different and glistening in the light. It was so much fun!

And the finished product! So pretty!

We filled 62 jars with all varying flavors of salsa as we practiced with each batch. It was a great learning experience and I would even do it again someday! It will be fun to see how long it takes to use all of this salsa!