Salsa Season is Here!

This summer's heat loving vegetables took their time this year so I am only just starting to get enough tomatoes ripening at once to make a batch of salsa.  Until now I have been throwing the tomatoes that ripened here and there into the freezer so I can turn them into tomato sauce at my leisure.  The peppers have been taking their time as well, but I do have a few that are starting to change color, so I'm sure I will be able to harvest a good number of those soon.

Over the past couple of days I picked a number of good sized tomatoes as well as a decent amount of cherry tomatoes.

I sliced them into small chunks and started fill the pot with 10 cups of a variety of chopped tomatoes.

I then went out to the garden and picked out some of the less than perfect peppers that I could find.  Many of them had blemishes that I had to cut out, but I was able to find a small assortment of bell peppers for the salsa.

I removed the seeds and the stems and chopped them into small chunks then added them to the tomatoes in the pot.

 I love the variety of colors of the peppers.  It's going to make some pretty salsa!

Next I chopped up five cups of onions and added them to the pot.  I tried to use up as many of the tiny onions as a I could from my recent harvest, so it took quite a while to accomplish this step.

The last thing I added to the pot was two and a half cups of chopped jalepenos.  I picked a bunch a couple of weeks back and they have been patiently waiting in the fridge for all the other veggies to catch up.

To the main mix of veggies I added some apple cider vinegar, salt, cilantro and garlic, then put the whole thing on the stove to boil.  It made a very colorful mix once it was stirred well.

Once the mix boiled for ten minutes I transferred it into jars and put them in the canner for twenty five minutes.  The end product was beautiful and I ended up with a total of eight pints and a little left over for snacking.

As soon as they cool down they will moved to the pantry, though I'm not sure where they will fit on the shelves.  My pantry is getting very full this year and I'm loving it even though it's been a lot of work.