I love fresh salsa, and have always used the same recipe for years, however it is quite a labor intensive recipe. Yesterday I had quite a few tomatoes to use up, and knew that using my regular salsa recipe would take me all day so instead of using my normal recipe I went for a roasted recipe that was much less work and tasted great.
Ingredients:
About 7 to 8 pounds of tomatoes (I used a mixture of Roma and Celebrity)
Several hot peppers (I used a mix of Chile, Cayenne, and Kung Pao)
7 large green peppers
3 large onions
6 tablespoons Olive Oil
1 cup of lime juice
4 tablespoons minced garlic
Directions:
One of the reasons that a roasted salsa is so much easier is that it doesn't require a lot of chopping, the vegetables just need a rough chop.
Cut tomatoes up into chunks. For the Romas I just cut the tomatoes in half, and with the Celebrities I cut them into quarters. I left the peel on them.
I like a hot salsa, if you don't like a hot salsa you can skip the hot peppers. I used a handful of red Chile peppers, about 3 or 4 Cayenne peppers, and a couple of Kung Pao peppers. This made for a spicy salsa but not an unbearably hot salsa. If you like more or less heat simply adjust to meet your tastes. With the peppers, I simply washed them, and cut the stems off. I left them whole, and with the majority of the seeds in them.
With the green peppers I cut them into large strips. I removed both the tops and the seeds.
I simply sliced the onion into about seven or eight large chunks.
After all of the vegetables were cut I mixed them together and put them in my large electric Broaster. I then drizzled the olive oil over them, then I added in the lime juice and minced garlic. You could easily use whole garlic and roast it with the vegetables but I didn't have any on hand.
I roasted the vegetables at 300 degrees for three hours.
I apologize for the lack of pictures for the last few steps. I was in a hurry and didn't get them taken. I will try to take some the next time.
After the vegetables were through roasting, I scooped the vegetables out in spoonfuls and placed them in my food processor. Since we prefer a thicker salsa I tried to avoid getting the juice into my processor. I then used the "pulse" function on my food processor to mix the vegetables up. After I ran it through the processor I poured the salsa into a large bowl. Since I had so much sala I couldn't put it all into my food processor at once so I just processed it a little bit at a time.
After I had processed all of the salsa, I stirred it all together.
The next step is to spoon the salsa into pre-heated quart jars. Please pre-heat your jars since you are putting hot salsa into the jars, you can do this in the dishwasher or in a pot of boiling water.
After you have filled your jars, you will want to wipe the rims clean, and put on lids.
Tomatoes are one of those fruits/vegetables that are borderline on acidity. Some sources will say salsa can be canned using a water bath canner, others will say you must use a pressure cooker. Since I have a pressure cooker, and tend to err on the side of caution I processed my jars in the pressure cooker for twenty-five minutes at eleven pounds.
This recipe produced about eight quart sized jars of salsa.
