Salsa Anyone???

Salsa??? Did someone say salsa?......Well they did somewhere and I came right over here to tell you my salsa story:

Did I ever tell you that I make salsa by the 5 gallon bucketful? I've had people ask me for the recipe for a bowlful. When I tell them how big my batches of salsa are, they are speechless.

When I first started canning salsa people would ask "how hot is this salsa?"So the first couple of years the labeling was kinda lame - "mild," "med. hot," " hot,"...etc....

Then came the names series:

Wimpy Salsa- you KNOW who you are :D

T.I.T.S.-stood for This Is The Salsa- this produced some laughs when a friend took a couple of jars of it to the bar, then proceeded to call the hubster and tell him everyone at the bar liked my T.I.T.S.

Killer Salsa- that's Mr. Killer to you

And Killer H. Salsa- the H in a salsa name means it has Habanero peppers in it.

Next came the Dragon series- Baby Dragon, Dragon Spit, Dragon Fire...

But I still got the ol "how many peppers are in this?" Like I cared? I mean, come on people, I'm making this stuff by the 5 gallon bucketful!

So the Song series was born- I took songs with numbers in the title and made a batch of salsa with that many peppers in the 5 gallon bucketful. So "Around the World in 80 days" had 80 jalapenos in the 5 gallon batch.

The number in the song was how many peppers I put in tht 5 gallon batch. It eleviated all questions about hotness or how many peppers..blah, blah, blah

50 Ways (to Leave your Lover) was changed to "50 Ways to Eat Your Salsa"

Get your kicks on "Route 66"

"76 Trombones" - which naturally, was followed by "110 Clarinets"

"You're Gonna Cry 96 Tears" - made the hubsters hair cry

And the only exception was 25 or 6 to 4-which was a 4 gallon batch with 25 or 26 peppers-it was for those with 'delicate' tastebuds- you know who you are :D

At the end of the growing season I made one final batch called Mega H. Death with over 200 jalapenos and I don't remember how many habaneros. It is pure fire in a jar!

I ended up canning over 50 cases that year. We still have over 20 cases left!....and BTW, a 5 gallon batch of salsa makes over 3 cases of pint jars ...and I also canned "Peter Piper Picked a Peck of..." you guessed it Pickled Peppers!

Now I'm off to experiment with cheeseballs ...

XOXOXOXOXO
Cindi