How to Make Fresh Salsa

Last week my Sis In Law, Linda, came up for the day and brought the "fixings" for salsa.

I provided a nice big box of local tomatoes.

We decided to make fresh salsa.  I have made salsa that I cooked before, but never fresh salsa, so this was a great learning experience.  It's much quicker to make and also much healthier for you since it's raw.

We also decided to Lacto-ferment the salsa instead of using the Water Bath Canning method (which would cook it.)

Lacto-fermentation is basically added extra salt (or whey) and leaving the finished product on the counter top for 2 days to build up lactic acid as a natural preservative. Then you can transfer the jars to the refrigerator for up to 6 months (if they even last that long!)

 Simple ingredients: Tomatoes, onion, garlic, jalapeno, bell pepper, and cilantro/parsely

We decided to throw all the ingredients into a food processor and pulse the ingredients together.

It saved A LOT  of chopping time.

Once the ingredients were blended we added the seasonings like cilantro, chili powder, sea salt, cayenne pepper, and hot sauce.

The good stuff.

We HAD to taste each batch.

 One batch made about 3 1/2 pints of fresh salsa.

One batch = 5-6 tomatoes, 2 small onions, 1-2 small bell peppers, 1 jalapeno, 2 cloves of garlic, a handful of cilantro or parsely, 1 Tablespoon chili powder, 1 Tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon of salt, ground pepper, a few shakes of tabasco, 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper.

We washed the tomatoes and cut off all the ends and bad spots and quartered them to fit into the food processor.  All the veggies were cut into large chunks since the food processor takes care of the fine chopping.

We made 6 batches or 18 pints.

Our family started with 9 pints and now have 6 left over a one week period.

I think I need to make some more...
The Lunch Lady