Salsa

Since we have so many quarts of tomatoes from last year's garden,  I decided to make salsa and can it this year instead. I have never really had any luck because I hate runny salsa and much prefer fresh to canned, but... I have these really ugly tomatoes. They taste wonderful, but they are bursting open and the bugs love them and well, I cannot give them away for fear people will not eat them. I wish to start a campaign on vegetable discrimination, I just need to get rid of a few of my excess twitter accounts...
So I made about 20 cups of salsa using garden everything, including jalapenos. And boy are they hot. It has been moist and wet this summer, perfect weather for peppers. In fact here is a photo of the peppers next to a pencil so you can see the size. The red ones are the little peppers you can buy pickled in a jar. They are extra large and turning red. I have to pick them so the birds don't.
Well, the sauce turned out great, wasn't runny, but has an unusual taste compared to the stuff we usually make. It will be great to use in soups and stews as well as eat fresh. It can't be too bad, we almost ate a whole jar between three of us at the river Saturday afternoon.
I also made two more batches of lemon basil jelly. I may use it for gifts with handmade dish rags. I also used some of my regular basil and jalapenos for some pepper jelly. It was awesome. I'm sure we will have some fun experimenting with that flavor. Makes me thing I should be ordering basil seeds for next year - more flavors to experiment with. It's much too hot today to do much of anything. I will be traveling to Medina this evening to listen to Fred Kirschenmann speak about faith and sustainability. Should be interesting. I have always wanted to meet him. I am working on a video about jelly making, and learning a new editing software. I also start work at BSC next week and Farrms the following week. My life has been nothing less than interesting this past month, but I feel the hand of God in all of this and can hardly wait to see what's coming around the bend.