Canning Catch up

  I'm running behind on my fall canning.  I have two boxes of apples that I want to turn into apple sauce, two big bags of green tomatoes that need to be converted into salsa or relish (thanks to Rachel). Since I've made one batch of salsa already I guess relish is a slightly higher priority at the moment.  I also still have about 4 gallons of saurkraut that needs to be canned and my grapes will finally be ready to juice in about another week. An obsessive canner's work is never done.

   I tried out the green tomato salsa tonight and I like the recipe that I found on the internet. There were a lot to choose from but I had to go with "Linda Lou's Green Tomato Salsa".  I doubled the recipe so I was supposed to end up with ten pints but actually ended up with a only little more than eight.  The ingredients for the doubled recipe are as follows:  Assume that everything that can be chopped is chopped.

10 cups of green tomatoes

3 cups of seeded long green chiles ( I substituted bell peppers)

1 cup jalapenos

8 cups of onions

2 cups of either lemon or lime juice

12 garlic cloves

2 tablespoons ground cumin

6 tablespoons oregano

2 tablespoons salt

2 teaspoons black pepper

   Combine all ingredients into a large saucepan, stirring frequently, cook over high heat until it begins to come to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Then ladle into pint jars leaving 1/2 inch headspace and process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes. I'm including a picture in spite of the fact that Linda has already scooped me and posted pictures on her blog.

    In addition to the green tomato salsa I did my first batch of grape juice.  You will note the deep purple color. This is from a concord type of grape named "Valiant". I planted them about five years ago and it took about four years before they produced any significant amount of grapes. Last year the birds cleaned them out before I realized they were ripe.  This year I kept a close eye on them and harvested them just aas soon as the birds started on them.  I'm not getting a real good grape harvest this year from some of my vines due to our unusually cool weather. The "Interlaken" vines on the arbor over the back deck have a lot of grapes but the jury is still out as to whether they will actually ripen.