Can Do Attitude: Easy Garden Salsa

 Yeah, all of those tomatoes are fresh out of my garden.  Everything else, not so much, but these ingredients made a double batch of salsa, so 16 and 3/4 quart jars.

Also, I only used one head of garlic, and one of those really large onions.
And yes, I did use all those peppers.  I wanted a nice variety of spice, so there are random hot red peppers and purple bells from my garden, Anaheims, poblanos, jalapenos, whites, and yellow bells.  You can use as much or as little as you'd want.  I love chunky salsas with lots of pepper.

As far as the tomatoes go, I just divided my crop in half (since I was doubling the recipe).  They're Roma tomatoes, so I seeded most of them, but there wasn't a lot to worry about.

For each batch, I diced half in bigger chunks, then used my slap chop to finely dice the other half.  The chopper also made quick work of the onions and peppers.  I still wore gloves, though, because that juice gets everywhere and I hate accidentally getting it in my eyes (or worse) when cleaning up.

So, the ingredients for one batch (about 6-8 quarts)
8 C tomatoes; chopped, diced, and drained
2 1/2 C onions, diced
1 1/2 C green peppers, diced
1 C jalapeno, diced
6 garlic cloves, minced
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp ground pepper
1/8 C (or less) canning salt (optional)
1/3 C sugar
1/3 C vinegar
15 oz can tomato sauce
12 oz can tomato paste

Directions:
Mix everything together in a large pot.
Bring to a slow boil.
Boil for ten minutes.

Follow proper canning procedures.  Sterilized jars, boiling water bath for 10 minutes.  Let cool and wait at least 24 hours before storing.

Hint: to prevent the white grit from collecting on your tops, add about 1/2 C of white vinegar to your water bath.  It helps reduce/eliminate the residue.  ( I obviously forgot this step!)

Home Grown Beet Salad

Heading out to jazz in the park, and we quickly needed to find a picnic friendly dish where we already had the ingredients.

Luckily for us, we have a bunch of beets ready for the pulling.  This is the first year I've planted beets in the garden, since I'm not, typically, a beet eater.  However, my mom loves them, and I know they're relatively easy to can, so I thought I'd give them a try.

I planted Chioggia beets, primarily because they had cool stripes in the picture.

Also, because they were available when I wanted to plant them in my garden, so it worked all around.

Sure enough, when you cut off the tops - there are some really fluorescent stripes!

Ingredients:
6 large beets
2 T chopped parsley (I used cilantro since it was in the garden)
2 1/2 T freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 T olive oil
Minced red onion, salt, and pepper to taste

I was surprised how many of the stripes remained after cooking!

Directions:
1. Boil beets until tender.  Remove from water, then remove skins when cool enough to touch.
2. Cube the cooled beets.
3. Mix with remaining ingredients.
4. Let marinate in the fridge 1 hour (up to 24 hours), before serving.

As a non-beet eater, I was really surprised how sweet and amazing these were.  Definitely will do this recipe again!

Zuppa Toscana, just like the Olive Garden's!

 Making soup in the middle of a SoCal 75 degree winter isn't always the favorable option.  However, I was itching to try this recipe, and the temperature kept rising all week.  Finally, I had to cook the ingredients before worrying about freezing the meats and losing out on my momentum, so I finally broke down and made my Zuppa Toscana.

This is a copycat recipe from Olive Garden.  It was pretty simple to make, super filling, and pretty much spot on.  The only difference I made was using 1 qt. of broth and 2 c of water, and not vice versa.  I would have used all low sodium broth, but ran out!   Oh, also?  I threw the bacon back in at the end.  The recipe didn't call for you to do anything with it other than make grease, but I thought "why waste it?"

Sorry, not much to say about this one except for try it, because it's yummy.

Fall Bruschetta

Halloween Bruscetta - with orange tomatoes and black olives to help with your color scheme.  (No, these tomatoes don't taste any differently when you change the color.)  Make some crostini and enjoy!