Ann, My experience was a little different, I think mine was canning safe but obviously I don't have Annie's touch. I "thought" I was making Annie's salsa two season's ago. Thought it was pretty darn good too. I served DH the salsa that Annie gave us in MI...well he thought it was terrific, couldn't get enough of it, and consumed it in one day. I did make it hotter for my taste not DH's maybe that's the difference??

Cathy

Canning isn't cooking, you have to get used to that. You can doctor it after you open it to give it a fresh taste. You can fiddle with the recipe by subbing out different kinds of peppers (not the QANTITY, just the TYPE of pepper). You can leave out some spices but not add new ones. You can sub parsley for cilantro our leave it out if you don't like that. Sub lime juice for lemon, or use some cider vinegar if you like. There are also TONS of other salsa recipes out there if you want variety. My Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving has about five, and there are several more on the National Center for Home Food Preservation Web site. The paste tomato one is my current favorite, I'm making a big batch today.

Here is a link that might be useful: NCHFP How to Can Salsa

However, you CAN adjust and change the recipe. Even if it is no longer safe for boiling water bath, you can steam pressure can it. I created my own pasta sauce that is just how we love it, and then steam pressure canned it to be safe. Don't assume you can't can it because the proportions are not right for BWB. Just be sure and steam pressure can for the lenght of the veggie in it that takes the longest to pressure can. (Thank you Annie for this bit of information)

OT -- I often misread the topics of different posts. This time I saw "Why I Can Can, Salsa" and thought spacific must be telling us about her dancing skills.

How would you know if a home canned product was unsafe? Is there an off taste? Smell? Sound of sirens wailing down the road?

You could always freeze it instead. I think then it's recommended you add the garlic and onion after thawing, but I froze some before I knew that and my family didn't have a problem with it.

In a nutshell, the biggiest worry in home canning is low acid vegetables and a few fruits that are low acid. When they are canned, a low or zero oxygen environment is formed inside the jar. Under these circumstances, botulism spores which are normally found in the soil and COULD be in your jars, and are not killed by the temperatures of a boiling water bath or just heating the substance being canned, can start to produce a highly toxic substance called botulinum or something like that (it's not exactly that, but something spelled very similarly). That can KILL you! And there is no off smell, etc. for that. However, it is easily avoided by either adding acid and or sugar to low acid vegetables (such as many cucumber pickle recipes, for example), or by pressure canning, which if done correctly reaches a temperature inside the jar hot enough to kill the botulism spores so they don't start reproducing. Tomatoes are on the border of what is considered and acid fruit/vegetable and acid levels vary with the tomato, so it is tomato recipes that often cause the most discussion and controversy with home canners. As far as "safe" goes, one way to insure safety is to follow recipes developed by folks who have tested the safety of the end product in a regulated food lab, such as the National Center for Home Food Preservation at U. of GA (I think that's where it is), or commercial labs like Ball has. That doesn't mean that an old family recipe isn't safe for sure, but it means there is no way of telling for sure. Many home canning recipes are so similar to commercial ones that you can pretty much tell they are safe. Others fly in the face of safe canning practices with regards to acidity and processing, so you can pretty much tell they are unsafe. Some are on the fence. Also, there is no gauruntee that if you eat something unsafely canned you will get botulism poisoning, it is just a considerable risk. And since the consequence is death, I don't think it is worth the risk if there is any question as to the recipe or methods followed by the home canner. When done properly, home canning is absolutely safe, and the quality is far superior to what you would get in the store. It is no more dangerous that preparing meat. However, you can't mess around and expect it to be OK, just like you can't leave meat sitting out and think that you are not taking a risk.

If in doubt, pressure can it.

Well, it's not always "pressure can it for the vegetable that takes the longest", because some very thick things can have a density issue and that's something to be aware of, but Sherry's sauce certainly isn't dense enough to be problematic, or anything else I can, for that matter.

The problem with changing like Ann did is that you no longer know how much acid there is compared to the vegetables, and you have to have a certain acidic level. You can change the types of peppers, add more hot and fewer green, but the total ratio of vegetables and acid have to stay the same.

So, how to tell if an old family recipe is safe? there are no guarantees unless it's been tested by a lab, but there are some guidelines that, if you follow them, you're pretty safe.

Jo, sometimes a canned product will spoil and you can tell, it'll be moldy or taste "off". In that case, you should always throw it out. Botulism is the biggie in vegetables, and it's odorless and flavorless and a tiny bit can kill you. Fortunately, it's very, very rare.

Now, the problem with salsa is that it does not get heated before it's consumed. If I have a suspect jar of tomatoes and I toss it into spaghetti sauce or chili and boil it for 10 minutes, it's going to be safe to eat. Salsa doesn't get boiled before consumption, so it's something to be extra careful with.

Annie

dedtired - that was funny.

Thank you all for confirming what I had already surmised. Luckily everyone's a big salsa eater around here. So the fresh batches always go quickly.

With pickles, I can stick to the formula. Too bad my cucumbers had a lackluster year.

Jams and the like with fresh fruit like Annie says are very easy and very safe to can. There is so much sugar and acid in the fruit itself that botulism can't grow in an acid fruit medium. A fruit jam is just going to mold or ferment if you can it improperly, and you can tell, it will have an off taste and an off color. Heck, people used to seal jam crocks with lard to preserve them before modern canning methods came about. There are a few fruits that are low acid, I think maybe mangoes and figs?? Anyway, living in the north I don't deal with those fruits often in preserving. Tomatoes are on the border, and peppers are one of the LOWEST acid vegetables, so when you add those to salsa, you have to use a tested recipe for safety. You can mess around with peppers as to the type, but not the quantity. Green beans and corn must be pressure canned, and they are some of the worst offenders with old recipes and unsafe canning practices. And with pressure canning there is a consistency issue. Some things are too thick, like pumpkin butter. Luckily, those types of things can be frozen!! I've pressure canned salsa, it is OK (use the time for the peppers, which I think is 40/45 min.?) but to me, pressure canning kind of wipes the taste out of salsa. I've not tried freezing it. I have a couple of BWB recipes that I love so salsa for me is a pleasure and no brainer to can.

Just made a batch a week ago!!! Will be making more as DH eats it faster than I can make it. All the neighbors and friends love it. I omit the sugar as it's to sweet for us that way.
Linda