Salsa verde

 

I recently had the good fortune to be invited to dinner at a friend who's a great gardener and canner. She served us this green tomato salsa for starters, and I was inspired. I had a few unripe tomatoes myself, though not enough for a whole batch. Farm share to the rescue! 2 quarts of tomatillos would work  just swell. I dug around for more recipes, and they were all somewhat similar so I committed the biggest canning no-no there is. I messed with the recipes. Specifically, I used the above recipe as a starting point, but wanted to add 2 sweet red peppers, which I found represented in this recipe. I was working off half a batch there. To play things safe, I made sure the total acidity in terms of vinegar and lime juice was equal or above both recipes. Also, I sadly can't be specific about my hot peppers since they, too, came from the farm simply labeled 'hot peppers'. It didn't bother me, since I wasn't aiming for crazy spicy salsa anyway. If you are, I recommend cross-checking spicy recipes!

So here's what I ended up with:

5 cups chopped cored green tomatoes and tomatillos (a majority of the latter)
2 large red sweet peppers, finely chopped
2 yellowish green hot peppers of questionable origin. Not too hot
1 long dark green hot pepper, hotter but nowhere near jalapeno potency.
2 cups finely chopped red onion (3 good sized onions)
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 cup lime juice
1/4 cup white vinegar
2 Tsp dried cilantro (though I wish I'd had fresh)
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp sugar

8 (8 oz) half pint glass preserving jars with lids and bands

I put all ingredients in a pot, brought them to a boil while stirring and kept it bubbling for 5 minutes. I didn't want to have soggy salsa, so I didn't cook it as long as the second recipe suggested.

 

I was more-than-usually paranoid about ladling into piping hot, clean 8oz jars and processed them for 15 minutes immediately. It made 8 half-pint jars plus a bowl that I placed in the fridge for immediate taste testing.

The usual disclaimer: I cannot vouch for the safety of the above recipe. If you make it, you're doing so at your own risk.