Yields 6 pints jars.

The ingredient amounts in this recipe are approximate. Every time I make salsa it’s slightly different and I love to do it this way. I use what I have on hand and it’s fun to taste the slight variations in flavor…. it’s always delicious. This batch came out pretty mild in heat and came through big with the flavors of tomatoes and peppers with a slight brightness from the lemon.

Ingredients:

• Roughly 10 large tomatoes.

• 1 red onion.

• 5 stalks of green onion.

• 5 or 6 large bell peppers, I used about 10 tiny green bell peppers and 4 tiny red bell peppers.

• 10 jalapeños.

• 2 Anaheim peppers.

• Half a bulb of garlic, or about 6-8 large cloves.

• About 1/4-1/2 cup chopped cilantro.

• Juice from 2 lemons. Lime juice is also delicious in salsa.

• 1 tsp of fresh ground pepper.

• 1/2 tsp salt plus more to taste.

Method:

• Roughly chop your tomatoes and put in a blender or food processor and blend until puréed.

• Pour tomato purée into a large pot and place on a stove set to high heat.

• Occasionally stir purée while preparing the rest of the vegetables to avoid scorching.

• Remove seeds on all peppers and roughly chop.

• Roughly chop onion and garlic.

• Puree onions and peppers and pour into the pot with tomato purée.

• Add ground pepper and 1/2 tsp salt.

• Let puree come up to a boil and reduce heat to low.

• Simmer puree for about an hour stirring occasionally.

• Your want the mixture to reduce slightly. You can let it simmer longer than an hour if you want a thicker salsa.

• Turn off the heat and add in your cilantro.

• Add in about half of your lemon juice and taste. If the flavor seems flat, add in more lemon juice and salt to taste.

Canning Method:

• In a large pot, bring water to a boil.

• Add in your pint size mason jars and lids, I used 6 of them.

• Let boil for about 10 minutes to sterilize the jars and lids.

• Remove one jar from the hot water using the jar tongs.

• Using the funnel, pour the still hot salsa into the jar.

• Make sure the top of the jar rim is clean and does not have any splatter of salsa on it, any salsa on the rim could interfere with the seal.

• Retrieve a lid from the hot water using the magnet stick.

• Place lid on jar and tighten it using the screw on ring portion of the lid.

• As your jars cool, you will hear little “ping” sounds and this is exactly what you want to hear; this means your jars are properly sealed. You can tell they are sealed by pressing on top of the lid, if the lid does not move, it created a seal, if the lid pops back up, then the jars did not seal properly.

Enjoy!