The great salsa adventure
A bunch of us girls get together every once in a while for craft night. Now, normally, this has nothing to do with food or farming – other than we’re all farm girls and we usually eat food before crafting. But the last time we got together, my friend Cathy mentioned she was growing tomatoes in her garden this year.
Well, one thing led to another, as they are wont to do when women get together to craft and drink wine, and lo and behold, we had agreed that our next craft night should involve making salsa at Cathy’s house.
Since I am currently into canning and the like, I polled the girls to determine our collective level of salsa-making experience (result = 0) and seeing none, at least establish the availability of a suitable recipe.
One was indeed produced and after several small test batches done in my kitchen, we set about procuring supplies.
My stop for the fresh tomatoes, garlic, green pepper, onion and cilantro was Fraberts Fresh Food in Fergus. As a small business owner myself, I like to support other small family businesses and it seemed very appropriate that our homemade salsa would be made of (mostly) Ontario ingredients.
So, last Saturday, Kelly, Andi and I along with Andi’s young daughter Shana and Cathy’s toddler Kate, set up shop in Cathy’s kitchen in Rockwood for the great salsa adventure. It took us the better part of the morning to slice and dice 20 pounds of tomatoes, 10 pounds of peppers, 10 pounds of onions, a bundle of cilantro and four bulbs of garlic. Thank God Kelly brought her food processor! Granted, it’s not as satisfying as using a big knife (insert evil laughter) but without the electric help, we might still be there…
By 5 pm, we had 61 jars of salsa and four tired but very proud salsa-makers. We each took home 15 jars of salsa…and various left over veggies.
I was in charge of making sure we had enough vegetables and since math was never my strong suit (and you never know what kind of incidents could befall novice salsa-makers during this adventure!), I chose to err on the side of caution when figuring out the quantities to buy. All I can say is thankfully there are many more recipes to try that involve tomatoes!
Lilian says:
Hi Sharon – oh, I am…and thinking about what I might try my hand at canning next year!
Sharon says:
I’m sure you are still enjoying your bounty! Is there anything as satisfying and gratifying in these winter months as savouring that salsa and remembering the work (and fun) you had “putting it down” together, not to mention knowing how truly fresh it is! ENJOY!
Lilian says:
Hi Camille – it is actually from Jennifer Mackenzie’s “The Complete Book of Pickling”, I think it’s the classic salsa recipe if I remember correctly. The only thing we changed was we used white vinegar instead of apple cider vinegar. Jen (www.jennifermackenzie.ca) is an Ontario food writer, recipe tester and culinary entrepreneur and this book, her latest, is terrific. It’s available at Costco and Chapters. I was also planning on trying some of the actual pickle recipes (feeling very ambitious after the successful salsa session!) but ran out of time and will now have to wait until next year…
Camille says:
That sounds fantastic – could you share your salsa recipe?
Dana says:
Lilian, this is amazing! Just did a search on correcting agricultural misconceptions (Queen of the Furrow speech) and it came up, love it!
Jackie says:
Thanks for the “shout out” for Fraberts Fresh Food! As suppliers of the wonderful Ontario-grown ingredients, we are proud to have been a small part of your great salsa adventure!
Jen says:
Ahhhhh, this warms my heart!!!!
Congratulations on the Great Salsa Adventure!