Ratio of vegetables to lemon/lime juice are good. 1 cup should be plenty. I think it will be fine. Usually when fresh is NOT stipulated, dried is assumed and dried is almost always better to use in canning.

Dave

Not knowing HOW MUCH oregano was involved in about TEN cups of ingredients, I can say that it is not significant percentage wise. Whether fresh or dried should not make a material difference. PLUS, even fresh oregano has very little moisture contents to dilute the acidity.

I don't see any problems with this that I'd be uncomfortable with.

Thanks, folks!

Turns out there is another problem, though. I used plastic-lime juice, and I have no way to find out what the brand was.

So, NOW do I gotta give up and freeze it?

It is still waiting in my fridge... tomorrow (Friday) is when I have to time to do whatever it is I am going to do with it.

I found a few more green tomatoes. I could add them and a bit of vinegar?

Ultimately it is going to be your choice - how comfortable are you eating it. I'd be comfortable with it. I'd eat it.

Dave

Well, yes, but I hope to make as INFORMED of a decision as possible. I appreciate your vote for eating it :).

If the salsa turned out to be a fairly juicy (not dry) mixture, I would not be concerned. Generally a 100% vinegar-based pickle would be considered safe with a wide variety of low-acid vegetables.

In this case you have a mixture cooked (and thus acidified) in undiluted bottled lime juice, which is even more acid than vinegar.

However, it's always your call. If you are uncomfortable then pick the choice you can most easily live with.

Carol

Thanks, Carol! It is very juicy. The lime juice was from a plastic lime, and I don't know the brand. But there is definitely no added water.

Plus it is mostly green tomatoes which are more acidic to begin with. Even the few breaker tomatoes would be more acidic. Then if you compare it to other safe salsa recipes that use even more tomatoes (ripe ones) and about the same amounts of other ingredients plus 1 cup of vinegar (and you used lime) I honestly don't think there is anything to worry about.

Dave

Plastic lime or not, I'd be willing to bet all those bottled lime juices fall within the same narrow range per acidity. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if all those "store brands" come out of the same facility that bottles ReaLime. It's a lot more cost effective to pour all of it out of the same "vat", so-to-speak, and just slap a different label on the container.

Carol

The plastic limes and lemons are a trademarked item from the RealLemon/RealLime company. Same as the bottle, just costs more per ounce.

Oh, thanks you guys!

The salsa thickened up in the fridge and didn't thin again when reheated for canning. I guess it has a lot of pectin? I added some 5% cider vinegar to thin it down to something like its previous consistency, in case that was needed for good heat penetration, and canned it :).

-

Oh, dang, do I now have another problem with this what was supposed to be simple salsa?

I put it in 4 oz canning jars. I'd never used them before, but 8 oz jars tend to go bad before they get used up around here.

The jars are cute as the dickens :). But they popped instantly -- one even before i tightened the rings, and I have no idea which one it was. The others, immediately after tightening.

Do I have to recan them, and tighten each jar as I take it out?

Gah.

You're not supposed to tighten the rings after you take them out of the canner. Do you mean a lid popped (button down, like it sealed) when you were putting on the rings before putting them in the canner? No problem, it will "open" in the water and will process just fine as long as the rings are fingertip tight, and you don't mess with them until they've cooled.

Thanks for your speedy reply :)).

No, I don't mean that.

They were pretty tight when I put them in, and VERY loose when I took them out.

I've found the smaller the jar, the faster it 'pings'.

If they're loose coming out of the canner, just leave them alone, don't tighten the ring. It already did its job in the canner if you didn't have it too loose or too tight then, it's not going to help to tighten it afterwards and it may break/prevent the seal.

To clarify, when I put them in the canner I actually wondered if I was overtightening the rings.

When I took them out, they were so loose that, if a cold jar had a ring that loose, I would not pick it up by the ring and walk across the room. I would expect the slight jostling of walking to move it just enough that the jar would fall out of the ring and onto the floor. So I thought I HAD to tighten them.

Also, what does it mean when canning directions say to take the jars out of the canner and 'adjust lids'? I thought that meant 'fix any egregious problems' ;).

For someone who learned how to can as a kid, I sure mess up a lot, don't I? I went and read the beginning canning page at NCHFP -- but it does not mention the 'adjust lids' phrase.

--

This salsa is worth the bother, though. I had some of the leftovers with lunch -- tres piquant! If I have to recan it in bigger jars that might be ok.

I wrote the above post before the two above IT. Then my computer crashed :).

So... the rings are only to hold the lids on while underwater, and not to hold them close to the jar rim while sealing?

And, at this point should I recan this dang salsa?

It is normal for the bands to be loose when they come out of the canner. That's why the canning instructions say

Let the jars sit undisturbed while they cool, from 12 to 24 hours. Do not tighten ring bands on the lids or push down on the center of the flat metal lid until the jar is completely cooled.

Now, not to complicate this whole thing even more with yet another issue but you made this on Tuesday and didn't can it until Friday? We are just ignoring the 24 hour rule???

Granted it is somewhat less of an issue with pickled foods than with non-pickled foods but food to be canned isn't supposed to sit in the fridge for 3 days. It is either canned within 24 hours of preparation or it is frozen. So in the future, when in doubt, freeze it. After 24 hours it is "left-overs".

I had assumed you went ahead and processed it after the first post and that we were now discussing eating already canned produce.

Dave

I did not fully cook it on Tuesday. It was cooked, not raw, but today, right before I canned it, I boiled it for the 10 minutes the recipe says.

I thought it would be better to do the specified boiling time on the day of canning?

Just to drive all of us completely insane, I will mention again that it thickened up while in the fridge and I added ACV when reheating, to make it sloshy. It has now cooled and thickened again in the jars. If I were to reprocess, would I need to add EVEN MORE vinegar?

::bangs head against wall::

Nila.........it is very normal for rings to feel quite loose after you take them out of the canner. Resist the temptation to tighten them or remove them until the jars are cooled at least twelve hours.

I wouldn't reprocess it. That won't make any difference. And since you added more vinegar and boiled it for 10 min. it is probably as safe as it can be under the circumstances.

Any bacteria that may have developed in the fridge has now been boiled for 10 min. so any possible toxins were destroyed. And given the acidity now nothing more can grow. Just keep the 24 hour in mind in the future. Either process it or freeze it, ok?

And don't bang your head against the wall. You'll just get a headache and might damage the wall in the process. Then you'll have to fix the wall and the patch will show and the paint will never match so then you'd have to re-paint the whole room and the headache will just get worse from the paint fumes! :-)

Dave

OK, take a deep breath.

It is difficult to imagine that mixture sitting in the fridge already cooked and suffused with lime juice is going to develop any sort of problem over the [few] days it sat in the fridge. If you had prepared a small batch and planned not to can it at all certainly three or four days refrigerated is entirely reasonable.

There is a quality issue, though, in that there will be textural changes (i.e. softening) resulting from the extended refrigerated time. As you also discovered, the solids absorbed much of the liquid. Adding vinegar is fine, though it may (slightly) alter the flavor.

You've already received advice on the rings issue. Just get those jars out of the canner and let them rest. Don't touch the rings or re-tighten no matter how much they slop around. (Re-iterating for emphasis, LOL.)

It's fine. Enjoy the salsa.

Carol

Oh, about "adjust the lids" or "complete the seal" - those are from old recipes back when people used rubber gaskets with bail-style jars, you would process with the bail up and the glass lid sitting on the gasket, after you took the jars out of the canner you would flip the bail down to press the glass lid against the gasket to seal.

No need to do anything to the lids/bands on new 2-piece types to get them to seal - in fact, the opposite - you want to leave them alone until fully cooled after which they should be sealed and you can remove the rings.

Thanks, folks. I won't worry about this (extremely acidic) salsa. And thanks Dave, for the chuckles :).