Newer version of Annie's Salsa - BWB only Annie's Salsa 8 cups tomatoes, peeled, chopped and drained 2 1/2 cups chopped onion 1 1/2 cups chopped green pepper 3 to 5 chopped jalapenos (for milder leave out seeds and ribs) 6 cloves minced garlic 2 tsp cumin (optional) 2 tsp pepper 1/8 cup canning salt 1/4 c fresh cilantro (optional) 1/3 c sugar (optional) 1 cup cider vinegar (see note on subbing lemon or lime juice option) 16 oz canned tomato sauce (to adjust density) 8-16 oz canned tomato paste (to adjust density) Mix all ingredients, bring to a boil, boil 10 minutes. Pour into hot jars, process pints for 15 minutes in BWB. Makes 6 pints. _________ A lot of changes have been made to this recipe over the years. Some people like lemon or lime juice in place of some or all of the vinegar, that's fine. (Note from Sheila - I like half lemon half lime.) Some people leave out the cilantro, that's fine too. Do not increase! Some people add more hot peppers or fewer onions, fine as long as you keep the same total measurements. (Note this is what NCHFP does in their new Choice Salsa recipe.) Some people leave out the sugar, that's fine. You can scoop out the goo in the middle of the tomatoes with your thumbs when I'm peeling and chopping for a less seedy version, so it's 8 cups of chopped tomatoes without the seeds and goo. Most who make it regularly as well as Annie recommend using a variety of different slicing tomatoes, not paste types, for best flavor and consistency. (Note: use the tomato sauce and paste to adjust the consistency of the final product to a "sloshy" consistency.) According to Annie "My salsa is not as thick as Heinz catsup but it's thicker than taco sauce. If you don't like it quite as thick or sweet, cut down the amount of paste. I would add some, then taste. Reducing that ingredient shouldn't affect the safety of the recipe. I use equal amounts of sauce and paste. You can pull it off the heat at any point and adjust for flavor. Before I cook it I check for salt, sugar, check the consistency. Add more pepper or cumin if I want. When I first started making this salsa, tomato sauce and paste came in 8 and 16 ounce cans. Like everything else, they've now been downsized, so now I have to use partial cans." Does anybody have good versions of the other recipes that have weird symbols in them for measurements?

Charlene, I'm too cheap to go buy spice jars. I just peel the label off the empty store bought ones, and make my own label. I just pulled 8 half-pints of Cranberry Jalapeno Jelly out of the canner. I'm working on roasting, peeling and freezing the rest of the peppers. Sure wish I would have remembered to put the rubber gloves on this time ... and not touch my face! Does your recipe call for leaving pieces of pepper in the jelly, or straining them out? I'd be interested in the recipe. I kind of want to try the Habanero Gold recipe in the Ball canning book, but I'm a little scared of how hot it might turn out. Jalapeno peach sounds a little less intimidating : ) Finally starting to see the kitchen countertop again. Progress has been made! Bonnie

So maybe I could give Boone's Farm a run for their money?! (Sorry, esoteric 60's reference!) Partially drying then freezing might be a good way to go, takes up less space and I could add them to baked goods. Found a recipe in "Small Batch Preserving" for Strawberry Sherry Preserves and as luck would have it I happen to have an opened bottle of sherry that I have to use up before it becomes vinegar. Also ran across "Maple Strawberry Smooch" in the Ball Blue Book while looking for the sherry recipe. That would be great on pancakes in the winter and a way to stretch the expensive maple syrup which I have been trying to do lately. Also a strawberry kiwi freezer jam which sounds fun and would be a way to use up some odd jars I have laying around. On reconsideration, I think I will forgo the fruit leather because I wouldn't eat it, too concentrated sweet for me. By butter, I was thinking not mixed with butter but a fruit butter. Would probably be best to mix strawberries with apple, since I imagine they would be taffy-like as full-on strawberry butter. But I don't know.

Every year my tomatoes have a theme. One year it was oranges, last year it was whites and container varieties. This year it's blacks and a few others, including the return of a couple kinds. Black Pepper- new this year, a paste Black Prince- new this year, 5 oz fruits Black Krim- new this year- beefsteak Black from Tula- new this year, saucer Dwarf Wild Fred- a return from last year. One of the best tomatoes of last year, the others being White Queen and Snow White Cherry. A nice container plant, and a tasty black getting compared to the other blacks this year. Jaune Flamme- a return from 2014. Hands down the best tomato of the year, great fresh, canned, and dehydrated. 2-4 oz fruits, compact growth habit topping off around 5', suitable container plant. Pink Bumblebee cherry- new this year. I try to have an interesting bicolor every year, last year was Copper River. I plan on doing a cherry/tiny eats compare year in a couple years, and need to test out a couple of little ones every year too. Sweet Pea Currant- new this year. Just another little eats, but container growable. I also have clones going from some of the indoor/overwintered plants I took in because I had seed stock failures last year, or because I wanted to test out their limits, lol. So a couple of these might stick around through the summer if I need seed stock off of them, but it's more likely that either they will get sold off come spring. Totem- a super hearty container plant. Sets seed well indoors and out, takes cuttings/cloning very well, and overwinters in the kitchen window nicely. Germination rate is high, and early growth stays small. Silvery Fir Tree- not so suitable for indoor overwintering, it likes a bigger pot. And it gets leggy. Will grow out for seed stock if I can coax the clones along till spring. It's a pretty ornamental I want to revisit in the future, so I want to save seed for the sake of saving seed. Beaver Lodge Slicer- Healthy plants, decent in containers. Taking cloning pretty well. I have a half dozen seed stock tomatoes growing and ripening right now, may or may not keep cuttings. A right nice and early setting red, it grows well around here and sells well. Copper River- really a lovely plant with nice flesh, I want to save this seed for the sake of saving it more than anything else. I have one mother plant that is a long vine, very leggy in the kitchen window. It is finally producing a nice sucker I can cut for cloning, and two small flower clusters forming.