Homemade Salsa

I made homemade salsa for the first time. The ingredients cost me about $15 and made 9 pints worth. It would have been much cheaper if I could grow my own tomatoes but still less than buying salsa from the store. The salsa tastes SO GOOD! I love it. I like my salsa to be pureed rather than chunky. Even when I buy chunky salsa I run it through the food processor. If you ever tried Margaretville’s salsa it tastes just like it. The recipe did not call for it to be pureed but I did it any way before canning it. I took about three hours to make mainly because this was new to me. There is a great sense of satisfaction and fulfillment knowing I am eating salsa I made from scratch.

The first step was to peel the tomatoes. Who the heck peels tomatoes? After the first tomato was peeled I thought there had to be a better way. I looked in my canning book and found I have to submerge the tomatoes in boiling water for a minute. After that, put in cold water. The skins came right off. That was so easy. I continued preparing all of my ingredients when I went to the fridge for cilantro. I grabbed two things of parsley at the store and no cilantro. Damit! I got into my car and went to Walmart and picked up cilantro. Lucky for me Walmart is just two miles away.

On my way to Walmart my hands started burning – on fire and turning red. I forgot to wash my hands after deseeding the jalapenos and hot red peppers. It is now five hours after touching the peppers and my hands are still on fire. After I completed my canning I started searching for tips online to get the pepper oils off my hands. Of course all of these smart asses on the internet say to use gloves before touching peppers. I don’t care about preventative; I need to know how to get it off! The first thing I did was put lemon juice on my hands. That helped stop the burn for about a minute. Next I tried dumping rubbing alcohol all over my hands. That helped for about another minute. I continued to try vinegar, hand sanitizer, and even butter. The most soothing thing was aloe but it still hurts. Not as bad as an hour ago but sucks none the less. I can’t touch anything remotely warm.

Today I spent over half of my grocery budget for the month but I stocked up and the rest of the month will be small purchases. I spent $334.03 after my $113.10 in coupons. That included cosmetics, personal care items, pet supplies, canning supplies, cleaning supplies, and groceries. I had a lot of great coupons at BJ’s warehouse and now have enough toothbrushes and toothpaste to last me the rest of the year! So it seems like a lot but most of the items will last a few months.