Salsa Party

Last Sunday was the second annual salsa making get together, at my place. I picked up the produce, from 2 local farms, on Friday and left it in the car, in the garage, as it was cooler there than in the house (hot and sticky).

A bushel of green peppers (seconds), a 6 quart of hot banana peppers, about 10 huge spanish onions
and bag of regular cooking onions.

One box of Roma tomatoes and one box of field tomatoes

That was all we needed along with some vinegar, cilantro, salt and a small jar of tomato paste for each batch (just to thicken it up at the end of the cooking period).

There was a lot of tomato peeling and vegetable chopping to be done.

Dad helped out with the first couple of batches as hot peppers and onions don't seem to effect him (though even he had some tears regarding the spanish onions - so sad). The bulk of it, however, fell to Danielle, Mum, Nicola and myself. We took occasional breaks to sit outside, on the front deck, as it was a beautiful beach day.

Each batch simmered for at least an hour and a half and at one point we had 3 batches on the stove.

Part of the haul.

In total (6 batches) I think we made 44 jars of  Mild, Medium and Hot salsa versions. That gave each family 11 jars and our cost per family was $17.50. Cheap salsa but a full day of work with lots of chopping. We know from last year that the product will not mellow with age, in fact it gets spicier.
With everyone gone and my kitchen cleaned up (thanks Nicky) I went for a bike ride, looking for Monarchs (just a few, no massing yet) and watched a glorious sunset.