Because people like to say "Salsa!"

The roundup

26 tomatoes of various kinds (beefsteak, roma, heirloom), garlic, 3 sweet onions, 11 jalapeños, a bushel/garland whatever of cilantro, salt, black pepper, cumin, paprika, and apple cider vinegar.

Boiling water for peeling tomatoes

An ice bath to help with the peeling

I started with the bigger ones, this is a beefsteak the size of a grapefruit

About 30 seconds for each tomato should do the trick, a little longer for the less ripe ones

Another 30 seconds or so in the ice bath

After the beefsteaks, I did 4 at a time

Here they are all peeled and ready to go into the oven

I put them in the oven with the jalapeños at a temp of 400 degrees Fahrenheit

I sautéed only 2.5 onions since that was enough. Also cooked them with 10 garlic cloves

I was sure to sterilize the jars in boiling water for at least 5 minutes

I also made sure to use a different batch of water than the one I used on the tomatoes. Different pot, too

Also boiled the bands of the lids for a bit, but I hand washed the inserts

After 40 minutes in the oven, I removed the jalapeños

I blended them up and kept them separate from the mix because these packed quite a kick

Here's the onion/garlic mix

I cooked the onions a bit before adding the garlic. They were cooked until brown, I wanted to avoid anything turing crisp or too dark

A total of 45 minutes in the oven, it was time for the tomatoes to come out

I took a fork to check the tenderness of the bigger tomatoes. I wanted the fork to have no trouble running through them

I didn't have a bowl big enough so I used my dad's 12 quart pot

This thing is fine piece of cookware, I might add

A good handful of kosher (never table) salt

A pinch of paprika for that slight smokey taste

Some black pepper

Cumin since it is a great compliment to many Hispanic dishes

Cilantro, the foundation of any great salsa

I ended up using 3 limes' worth of juice

Apple cider vinegar for balance

I can't describe what this vinegar does to the salsa. It brings out the right flavors while also toning down the right flavors. If you're still iffy, get a small sample bowl and mix it in with some salsa to try. If you do use it, be sure to add small amounts first and work your way up to taste. I barely used half a cup

The Immersion blender

After adding the onion/garlic mix and less than half of the peppers, I blended it all

You could just use a masher and go for the chunky texture but I personally like my salsa pureed

The fun part: taste testing

I didn't measure anything, I just added to taste. Even with half the pepper mix, it still had a nice kick. Not too strong, though, but enough to where none more was needed

After canning 6 jars, I just added the rest of the peppers to make an extra hot batch

I boiled the filled jars for at least 15 minutes each

The least fun part: cleaning up

I made a rudimentary funnel to make canning a lot easier since there isn't one in the house

The finished product, 8 pints of salsa that should last a while

The leftmost 2 jars are the extra hot ones. I let all of them cool down for a day before putting them away. That next day I also pressed down on the lids to make sure they didn't pop. All but one did, it was an extra hot jar so I didn't feel to bad, so I've been snacking on it lately. As long as I did the canning process right, the rest should have a shelf life of about 6 months or so. This is only the second time I made salsa like this, the first batch didn't last a week since it was all eaten. Hence why I made so much this time. I looked up several salsa recipes online so this one is an amalgamation of many. It tastes pretty good, too. I hope it stays good for a while. It may have taken a couple hours but it was a fun process. Make time to cook something, you'll never know what you'll love to make