This sounds delish! I just planted my Green Sausage outside in the cold frame today(it will be 85F tomorrow so they pop up quickly). I don't have any of the hot peppers in the recipe but I do have some very nice hot orange hab's in the freezer from last year that'll put a "kick" in the salsa and go with the color theme. I don't think parsley would be the right herb for this so the re-emerging cilantro will be my choice. Just hope it doesn't bolt before I can get it frozen for later this summer when the rest of the veggies are ready.

Thanks for sharing this recipe. 25 min in BWB sounds like a long enough time for processing the veggies, and letting it sit for a week or so will help too. Perhaps the lime should be tested with pH paper and perhaps bumped up a bit with fresh lemon juice?

Nancy

The salsa sounds wonderful but it seems awfully high in low-acid veggies for the amount of lime juice. I wonder how the processing time was arrived at or who developed the recipe originally?

Carol

Not sure about who wrote the recipe, but because it was in an Organic Gardening publication, I must assume that it was well sourced and is safe. As mentioned, everything added is minced, as opposed to being chopped. This helps to reduce any possibility of large pieces not getting the proper 'treatment'. I suppose more lime juice can be added as I must agree that lime juice can vary in acidity. Even for that, a little cider vinegar can also be added, or that infamous citric acid. For me, it would be bottled type of lime juice- Nellie & Joe's as that has a much more accurate amount of acidity. Parsley is for those who don't like cilanto. When I first tasted cilantro years ago, it was really good in salsa. Later on I added it to a stir fry with bean sprouts and it had an awful taste combination, I had to get used to. If youre hoping to get cilantro in time for the rest of the veggies, try planting several batches spaced a few weeks apart. This way, when one batch has finished and is starting to bolt, you should be able to have another crop almost ready to pick. One year, I planted seeds every 3 weeks through the beginning of August, and had it all the way through September. It had to be planted in acool shady spot however. As to peppers, adding any kinds hot or mild are your choice. For this one, even a little bit of crushed pineapple will give it some extra 'character'.

Can we assume with something like a salsa? Organic gardening is one thing; canning is another. I can think of all kinds of print material which includes recipes of doubtful reliability.

In this case, we don't know who created the recipe, his/her credentials or whether it comes from a reliable but unattributed source.

I'm not saying the recipe is unsafe. I'd just like to know for sure because it certainly sounds good. Personally, though, I wouldn't risk it without more information.

Carol

Did't find any author, or source. The recipe was printed in a small booklet as a sample for buying a subscription to OG. Those that use rubber gloves, hose down their whole kitchen with Lysol, wear hair nets, and face masks may not think of this as being safe to can, but as with any salsa recipe, its only as safe as you want it to be. Recipes are just starting points where a list of ingredients are suggested and used if the maker prefers them. For safety reasons, there is added acid, and because this product is not really chunky, and is cooked before canning, even after the tomatoes are cooked down, I would feel confident that its safe. OG magazine may have gotten this from any source. A search of their site does not bring it up. Adding bottled juice is a good way to help increase acidity. A 1/3 cup is quite low for 7 pints, but you could use more, or sub with some lemon or citric, or even cider vinegar.
If your really concerned about its safety, make it exactly like it states, and put it in a pressure canner for 10 hours and it should be safe enough to last a day longer than forever [grin]

Rubber gloves, Lysol, hair nets and face masks. I hadn't considered those, but I'll keep them in mind.

. . . I would feel confident that it is safe.

I just don't want to base my canning practices on what I feel. I don't think it's extreme to want to know who came up with a recipe and what their credentials are before I use it. That's a long ways short of . . . put it in a pressure canner for 10 hours . . .

But the nice thing about this forum is there's plenty of room for different points of view.

Carol

Yes. I was just being a bit snide.... I do realize that the source for this recipe is unknown, and I even sent off a note to OG about the recipe as it was not even found on their web site. I suspect it was derived from a home canner, as there were a couple of other recipes in that little booklet too, but this one was the only one that mentioned canning in pint jars. The whole recipe seems almost like something you would see in a BBB. I would definately add a bit more acid though, just to ensure its safety.

Those face mask and gloves items are used by many commercial canners, as their employees must have some contamination protection. Maybe not Lysol, but something similar that kills any possible germs in the vessles and prepping equipment too.

I don't question the processing, only the organic part. If truly organic, all the ingredient must be grown without fertilizers, except naturals and without man made insecticides.

Thanks so much for the recipe...it sounds really tasty ...enough so that I'd be willing to try it...

"Organic' simply means this recipe was taken from a sample issue of Organic Gardening Magazine. You can use whatever produce you feel like using. For the most part, my garden is fertilized with things like feather meal, fish meal, kelp meal, and corn gluten. Insect control is with Bt, Neem, and pyrethrins mixed with Canola oil.

This does sound awfully good. ;) But I share Carol's concerns about the amount of the low acid veggies especially since they aren't measured and allow for such a wide range. And the yellow tomato varieties are often low acid too. I wonder how much we would have to increase the lime juice to make it safe? And I can't remember but is bottled lime juice more acidic than fresh lime (as it is with lemons)? Maybe some citric acid? I wonder how it would stand up to pressure canning as an alternative?

I could easily do with 1/2 the garlic called for, only 5 of the hot peppers, say 2 onions, and 2 sweet peppers. That would bring the low acid veggies more into line with the amount of tomatoes...hmmmm...worth thinking about and maybe some dicing and measuring. ;)

OG mag might be willing to provide source info and validation info if asked. They used to be really good about requests for info.

Just a thought. ;)

Dave

Also to add a bit or acid and sweet, pineapple. Yes, bottled lemon and lime juices are a more standard acid content compared to fresh squeezed. Admittedly adding a 1//3 cup of fresh squeezed may not be as consistant compared to a bottled type. I see no reason you can't also add citric acid. Something like a half teaspoon per quart.

i must admit i dont understand all the acid stuff, and this will be my first year of canning, but i definately will try this recipe as they have it written. it sounds awefully good!! ummm but why do they have it all pureed' ? i love the chunky kind!! now that's yummy!! LOL

i must admit i dont understand all the acid stuff

The reason it matters is because low-acid foods provide a perfect environment for botulism. A boiling water bath doesn't reach temperatures enough to kill botulism spores. Since botulism can't be detected by sight or smell it's potentially possible to serve a hazardous product and not even realize it until someone get really, really sick.

Understanding these things is critical to safe food preservation. It's not something to fool around with.

I think I'm speaking for the Forum members when I say we don't recommend any first-year canner try an unverified recipe. You're better off sticking with salsas from the Ball Blue Book, the NCHFP site or other standard sources.

Here's one from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving and there are many others at the link below:

Summer Salsa

Yield: 12 8 oz. jars or 6 pints. (Don't can in quarts.)

4 cups chopped cored peeled tomatoes
2 cups chopped pitted peeled peaches, treated to prevent browning and drained
2 cups chopped cored peeled pears, treated to prevent browning and drained
1 red bell pepper, seeded and finely chopped
1 cup chopped red onion
3-4 jalapeno peppers, seeded and finely chopped
1/2 cup loosely packed finely chopped cilantro
1/2 cup liquid honey
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp. finely chopped fresh mint

Directions:

Prepare canner, jars and lids.

In a large non-reactive pan combine tomatoes, peaches, pears, red pepper, onion and jalapeno peppers. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring constantly. Add cilantro, honey, lemon zest and juice, vinegar and mint. Reduce heat and boil gently, stirring frequently, until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes.

Ladle hot salsa into hot jars, leaving 1/2" headsapce. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace, if necessary, by adding salsa. Wipe rim. Plade lid on jar. Screw band down.

Place in canner, ensuring jars are completely covered with water. Bring to a boil nd process 8 oz. jars 15 minutes and pints 20 minutes. Remove canner lid. Wait 5 minutes, then remove jars, cool and store.

For a party dip, Ball suggests stirring 1 1/2 cups of salsa into 16 oz. softened cream cheese or cubed processed cheese or a mixture of both. Heat in a microwave 5 minutes, stirring well at about 3. Serve with tortilla chips, crackers or bread.

Enjoy,
Carol

Here is a link that might be useful: NCHFP Salsas

I would cut the recipe down to 1/4 of the original quantities and just eat it fresh. Get an idea of what it tastes like, then look for a tested recipe that's similar. You could easily use yellow tomatoes and peppers in any salsa recipe. As long as the acid level is adjusted, you will be safe, since the tests account for varying acidity in tomatoes. Anyway I believe yellow tomatoes are of similar pH to red, they just taste less tart because they have more natural sugar.

I will lick the bowl after mixing up a batter with raw eggs, and I like my pork cooked medium, but botulism is no joke. It doesn't care how healthy you are! You could end up paralyzed but fully conscious for weeks, or you could die! I'm with Carol on this one, tested recipes only if acid level is in question.

Melissa

One thing about honey is most do conatin a trace of botulism and its not good to feed honey to kids under 2 years old, due to their insufficient immune system. Introducing honey as a sweetener is going to add to the risk of bolutlism, as your adding it to the mixture. That recipe of 1/4 cup of Balsamic vinegar is not nearly enough acid for all the other low acid ingredients. Even for that, my posted recipe called for 1/3 cup of lime juice.

Pardon me, but that recipe is from Ball and it's difficult to imagine anything they publish is insufficiently tested. It's far more common to complain of Ball that their recipes suffer because they err on the side of caution.

The Ball recipe contains a fairly high proportion of high-acid fruits, so comparing the recipes without using a pH meter would be extremely difficult.

I posted the Summer Salsa recipe and the salsa link for any member who might be interested. Beyond that it's up to them.

The reminder about honey is a good one, though I assume the overwhelming majority of parents are aware of that proscription; I'm not sure what percentage of toddlers consume salsa.

Carol

My concern would be the introduction of a botulism to the mix. It may be better to use a sugar, or even corn syrup. The acid isn't very high in pears, although it is a little higher in peaches. The amount of acid from tomatoes that varies and also peaches, along with Balsamic may still not be quite enough. Possibly red wine vinegar, or cider vinegar may be a better choice. Ball, for many years also also had many changes and deletions in their recipe books, based on more stringent requirements for food safety. The 'treated for prevention of browning' is the use of ascorbic acid, which is quite low in actual acidity compared to something like citric, and this may confuse some people who use citric to acidify and have not used ascorbic for oxidation prevention.

Ken, I don't know whether honey contains botulism spores or botulinum toxin. Produce can harbor botulism spores too, that's why low-acid canning in a BWB can lead to botulism. Botulinum toxin is degraded by heat according to a time/temperature curve. So either way, I don't think the honey is a problem. Unlike oil which can provide a safe haven for spores, honey dissolves into the mixture, so botulism there has the same chance at survival as botulism that was hanging out on the peppers.

Also, pears, like apples, contain enough acid to be canned alone, so while they may not be enough to acidify the peppers, they don't add to the amount of additional acid required. For a given volume of salsa, they would reduce the amount of additional acid because you have less low-acid produce.

I wanted to clarify that above when I said "as long as the acid level is adjusted," what I meant was "as long as the recipe contains a safe amount of acid (whether from the produce or from added acid like lemon juice or vinegar)". It's not safe to adjust the acid level to suit your taste, unless you're replacing water with vinegar or something.

Here is a quote on botulism from wikipedia (and the reference):

------------------
It is possibly the most acutely toxic substance known, with a median lethal dose of about 1 ng/kg[3], meaning that a few hundred grams could theoretically kill every human on earth (for perspective, the rat poison strychnine, often described as highly toxic, has an LD50 of 1,000,000 ng/kg, and it would take four hundred tons to kill every human).

It is also remarkably easy to come by: Clostridium spores are found in soil practically all over the earth.

[3] Ar non, Stephen. "Botulinum Toxin as a Biological Weapon." JAMA. vol 285. pp.1059-1070. 2001.
------------------

Makes the Ball recipe look more delicious than the OG one if you ask me. ;-)

Melissa

according to the CDC, it's the spores that may be present in unprocessed or under-processed honey. Therefore honey poses a particular danger for babies.

"In the United States an average of 110 cases of botulism are reported each year. Of these, approximately 25% are foodborne, 72% are infant botulism, and the rest are wound botulism...
"Infant botulism is caused by consuming the spores of the botulinum bacteria, which then grow in the intestines and release toxin...
"Because honey can contain spores of Clostridium botulinum and this has been a source of infection for infants, children less than 12 months old should not be fed honey."

One interesting point about Strycknine, birds seem to be immune to its toxic effects. I place bait for rodents laced with strychnine under my shed. By the next month the whole tray is gone, along with any of the regular rat baits (cakes and pellets). Not knowing how safe is honey, its an added item that can just unknowingly 'inject' the salsa with a toxin that could flourish, if conditions are right. Do you recall several years ago the commerrcial canning of mushrooms? They had a serious botulism problem with them, and for many months store shelves were empty. It can happen anywhere.

hello,

first time poster in this forum.

I think I'd like to can some salsa, because I'm growing several exotic peppers.

I paralize folks for a living, so I want to avoid our little friend botulism.

question: when I read a safe recipe, can I substitute x type of peppers for y peppers? add more/less onion etc. as long as I use the same amount of acid (vinegar, citric, etc.)

Propofol, yes, you can substitute the type of peppers, by mass. So assuming they are of similar wall thickness and cut the same way, you can also substitute approximately by volume (err on the safe side). You cannot necessarily substitute by number of peppers, because of course a bell pepper has more pepper to it than a habanero.

You CANNOT add more onion. Less is ok, and you can generally trade the low-acid ingredients (onions, peppers, other non-fruits) amongst themselves as long as the total amount of low-acid stuff is the same or less as the tested recipe.

Welcome to the forum! Glad to see you're interested in safe canning.

Melissa

Bottled lime juice (my favorite Nellies & Joe's) is another way to add acid to a salsa. Some salsa types are quite watery, like a tomato sauce, but its all in what you prefer as to its texture. I like adding some dried peppers and dried garlic and onion, which soak up the juices and also any acidity they contain.