A Sea of Salsa

Salsa is one of our favourite things to can - cracking a jar open in the dead of winter allows you to inhale the smell of midsummer (and of course, taste it, too!) Canning salsa usually involves one really long, hot and sweaty afternoon in the kitchen. This year, it was still a long afternoon - just not so hot and sweaty. After a few days of swelteringly hot and humid weather, the temperature did a sudden nosedive and the high yesterday was about 18 degrees Celsius - which gave us the perfect opportunity to get our salsa made without feeling like we were going to pass out from the heat.

We ended up with just under 12 litres of salsa from our afternoon of effort (which involved peeling and chopping 20 lbs of tomatoes, along with a plethora of red peppers, jalapenos, and onions). The recipe we use is the Picante Salsa recipe from Jean Pare's Company's Coming: Preserves book (you can find the uncredited recipe online here. We make 2 double batches to get 12 litres, which usually doesn't quite last us all year, but it's about as much salsa as I can handle canning in one day!

We are way off our usual canning schedule this year; we didn't get to any pickles in August, and I don't know whether I'll still be able to track down any pickling cucumbers at this point in the season. I'm hoping to get around to making some grape jam in the next day or two since my neighbour very kindly brought me over a whole grocery bag full of Concord grapes that grew over on his rental property. I've never made grape jam before, so we'll have to see how it turns out.

 Have you been canning (a lot or a little) this year? What are your favourite things to can?