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Fire-roasted salsa recipe

When it’s tomato-harvesting time, the first priority goes to canning them and making homemade spaghetti sauce to can

Ingredients
  

  • 3 green peppers
  • 2 red onions, peeled
  • 10 cloves garlic, peeled
  • 4 jalapenos
  • 20 tomatoes

Instructions
 

  • Quarter the tomatoes. Cut away the stem end and any brown areas. You don’t need to discard the entire tomato if there are some less-than-perfect areas. If the tomatoes are really juicy, squeeze the quarters gently into a bowl to releast some juice and excess seeds. Strain, save, and use in soup or sauce.
  • Remove the seeds from the green peppers and cut them into chunks. Leave or remove the seeds from the jalapenos. Cut them and the onions into big chunks. There’s no need to cut the garlic.
  • Spread the vegetables on a baking sheet and drizzle them with olive oil.
  • Roast at 425 degrees for about 20-30 minutes or until the edges of the vegetables get a little charred.
  • Cool slightly and add in batches to a blender or food processor. BE CAREFUL WHEN BLENDING HOT FOOD.
  • Add 1 chipotle in adobo if you’d like extra smoky, spicy flavor.
  • Blend until you like the consistency, making it chunkier or smoother as you desire.
  • Then, I chopped some cilantro and stirred that in with the juice of a fresh lime and some salt.
  • Mix all the blended vegetables together in a large pot. Heat to boiling.
  • Add to sterilized jars (keeping about ¾” of head room), wipe the rim and cover with a lid and band. Do not tighten the band tightly, only finger-tight. Air bubbles must be able to escape when processing.
  • Process pints for 20 minutes in a boiling water bath.

Notes

I originally wrote that recipes used about 15 tomatoes, but since I've made it several times now, I think that 20 is more accurate. But, of course, that varies with the size of your tomatoes.
Use the above amounts as a guideline and fill an entire 13 X 20“ tray with cut veggies.
The recipe made a total of 4 pints with a little left for sampling that I simply put into a container and stored it in the refrigerator.
Add some cumin to taste if you like a smokier flavor.