Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Two can do better than one toucan can

I think the scenario started off something like this:
"I'm going to make salsa."
"Do you even know how"
"Um. No. Any chance you do?" 
"........."
"I'll just figure it out."


After realizing that I won' just *figure it out as I go*, I researched. and researched. Do you know how many kinds of salsa there are? Much less the sub categories involving tedious and mindless preparation containing the same exact ingredients. No sweat. Right? Right..


Wrong.

One minute I was researching canning techniques, and the next I was reading about bath water. Salsa has grooming standards too ya know. Apparently you need special torture devices capable of 'bathing' your jars. 

Time to call in reinforcements. 

Grandma (and her entire kitchen and garden crops) were headed down to teach me to can.  Turns out it's pretty dang easy, once you have all of the necessary equipment. 

I'd love to share the recipe, folks. But I fear it won't help much....but it went something like this:

Heat the tomatoes in water for like...5 minutes for easy peeling. Pretty cool trick, eh?
Peel and chop everything. Or don't. Because you can just mashed it with a potato masher while it boils. 
Have face mask, eye shield, gloves, and the ambulance and fire department on stay-by because peppers are freakin' hot and they make everything burn.
Boil everything for an hour and a half...or until Grandma says it's good enough. 
Don't stick your face in the pot, because hot boiling tomato juices tend to bubble and land in your eyeballs. 
Put it in the jars, and then give it a bath. Ya know, in the boiling thing...
Don't push on the lids too see if they have sealed, no matter how fun it is to make the "pop" noise, because grandma will get mad at you.
Oh ya, and don't forget to make a special batch for your husband because he is ridiculously picky doesn't like onions.  
Most importantly, be grateful that grandma put up doing something domestic with you, realize how much you love her and how great she really is!!






Torture Device  


And voila! 


3 comments:

  1. It looks really tasty! Mmmm.. I am so jealous! I think I might have to convince Chris to help me can something now. Or at least to make me salsa. :)

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  2. Sounds like it was a fun day, It brought back memories of canning with Mom. Instead of salsa we made spaghetti sauce. We would also get in trouble for pushing on the top to hear the POP before it was sealed. It would have been fun to be there. TATA

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  3. Look at you! Being such a good homemaker. Love it.

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