Okay Cheryl, recipe time.

Haha. Well I never measure but ingredients are approximately
6 pounds of tomatoes, 1-2 onions, 6 gloves of garlic,one handful cilantro,3 -6 habanero's, dash of comino 1/4 cup beer and couple tablespoons sugar. Salt to taste and if I need a little more of something I'll add it at the end depending on my mood.

edited to add squeeze a lime over the finished product

Like several other posters, I add lime jiuce. Although I generally use bottled juice, I try to use fresh if there are good limes available. Good vinegar too, but the lime juice reduces the amount of vinegar needed.

LOTS of heirloom peppers, almost double the amount called for in the original recipe. The tomatoes I use vary from year to year, as do the peppers to some extent... but Beaver Dam is usually the backbone of the pepper mix. I let them ripen for several weeks, until they turn deep maroon & begin to shrivel. That gives the salsa both body, and a deep red color.

Cilantro sometimes... but depending upon the flavor of the tomatoes, I sometimes substitute dill seed. If I have a secret ingredient, that's it.

Taste test while cooking, sometimes add a little sugar or celery salt to balance the flavor.

When the salsa has cooked & is ready to can, I insert a conical strainer into the mix, and ladle out broth until the salsa is the consistency I want (I like it thick). That hot broth can be poured over ramen noodles... it can be pretty spicy, depending upon the peppers used.

I use garden tomatoes if I have them, if not I use stewed tomatoes from save a lot. Chop them up a bit. I use all the stuff everyone else mentioned except I also use some celery salt. I may add a little tomato juice but not too much. Must have minced garlic, cilantro, diced onion, lime juice, a bit of chili powder, cumin, smoked paprika, lime basil, pinch of oregano, diced candied jalapenos if I have them, diced green chilis, black pepper, & a little sugar.
Also a must to have good corn tortilla chips made from nixtamalized corn.

[QUOTE=oakley;595778]

This batch had fresh roasted corn.[/QUOTE]

Very nice. Heated on top of a tortilla with a slice of ham and egg is happiness.

Roasting/smoking a 5lb box of hatch chilis tomorrow. First for me, (not the smoking part as i do that all summer), but ordered hatch from NMexico picked tuesday, on my door yesterday. Still fresh and green with a bit of blush red/pink on just a few. Now i will have two chili smoked batches to pull from, all winter, for salsa. At least 5 dozen smoked frozen 1/2 pint packages...
28 10 inch Hatch chilis.

I should add it is very hard to grow any peppers in my climate at altitude over 20 years...but always try...had two plants give me a dozen minor peps this year but had 12 healthy plants, then 6 , then 2...just not my climate.

Alitude and Peppers
 

I am at 6000 feet in the Northern Rockies and have no problem growing peppers. Start early and put in either the greenhouse of a low tunnel. What is your altitude?

I use black tomatoes instead of red tomatoes. Actually, I try to use black tomatoes instead of red tomatoes for everything. :)

Add a chipotle pepper along with a spoon full of the adobo sauce it comes in.

"Add a chipotle pepper along with a spoon full of the adobo sauce it comes in."

I love that stuff, I use it in everything now since I ran across it.

[QUOTE=matereater;601123]"Add a chipotle pepper along with a spoon full of the adobo sauce it comes in."

I love that stuff, I use it in everything now since I ran across it.[/QUOTE]

Put it in your next pot of chili.:yes:

Worth

Chill powder, lime juice and zest. Chopped picked peppers gives more reliable heat. I find often that fresh peppers can be very unpredictable.
Never put cilantro in before processing. Cooked cilantro has a terrible funk to it. Add it fresh, when serving. Infinitely better.
Canadian Salsa. :) add black beans and corn for a nice chunky dip.
KarenO

[QUOTE=Worth1;601139]Put it in your next pot of chili.:yes:

Worth[/QUOTE]

+1

I make an old traditional Texas Red Chili using dried guajilla and ancho peppers that has no tomatoes in the recipe (except what's in the adobo sauce). No beans of course. I took the recipe with me to competition. I placed in the top 15 out of 56 teams. Not bad right? The chipotle peppers give it a "something smokey."

Not bad at all, especially given how seriously Texans take their chili. Care to post the recipe somewhere? Or is it a closely guarded secret?




[SIZE=1]... but then I'd have to kill you. [/SIZE]