Canning - Salsa, Relish, and Dill Pickles

What a fabulous and busy weekend!   Saturday started with a nice breakfast of all local foods....except for the bread.   Eggs from a local farm, potatoes, onions and peppers from the farm stand about 1.5 miles from my house, and hand crafted sage sausage from "Lothar's Gourmet Sausages"!


Next, I made Salad Shirazi - a nice refreshing Persian salad of onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, fresh mint, and lime juice.   Very delicious and refreshing on a hot day!

I bought a big box of tomatoes at the local Farmer's Market with grand ideas of making salsa.   I realized that I hadn't canned for over 20 years....and I had only done it twice - once to make strawberry jam and once to make pickled green tomatoes.    I was going to have to read up on how to do it again!   I also realized that I definitely needed some cilantro and onions....and headed off to Potomac Vegetable Farm....our local farm stand.

While perusing the onions, green peppers, and other goodies, I overheard someone saying she was picking up some ingredients that she needed for teaching a canning class that afternoon.  Of course, my little ears perked up....and I asked about the class.   It was going to be held at the next town over in about an hour and a half.   What perfect timing!     (This relieved the stress of not remembering how to can!  Talk about perfect timing!)

The demo/class was fabulous!  They had the zucchini and yellow squash  for summer squash relish pretty much prepared.  The instructors demo'd how to do it and let us each take a turn retrieving a sterilized jar and filling it with goodies....following all the tips they provided.     I got the take home two jars of the delicious relish.  (We tasted the left-overs while we were there.)

They also taught us how to make refrigerator dill pickles.  I made a jar while I was there....and came home and made two more quarts and a pint!  

 I guess I went a bit crazy with the salsa.....I made nine 8 oz. jars of salsa on Sunday....plus a pint and a half to "eat right away". - which was gone in no time!







Then Monday, after work, I came home and made ten more 8 oz jars!    I'm very pleased with my first attempts at making salsa - it was delicious!   And now, I have several jars to keep me going through the fall and winter.

Prepping the tomatoes.

Gathering the rest and chopping.

The final result....10 more jars of salsa!