After working most of the day Friday canning the Roma tomatoes, we took home a box to make Salsa.  Salsa making can be addictive.  You can use a mix or do it completely from scratch.  Since we don’t have a good recipe, we decided to use a mix.

Roma tomatoes

Roma tomatoes

The first step is to remove the skins.  Drop your tomatoes in boiling water for 30-60 seconds to loosen the skins.

 

Boil to remove skins.

Boil to remove skins.

Then you drop them in cool water so that you can handle them.  Make a slit with your knife and it just peels away.

Skins slip off easily after boiling.

Skins slip off easily after boiling.

Always follow safe, local canning directions.  You can get them from your extension service.  We crushed the tomatoes in a pot with vinegar and our mix.  We then brought the mixture to a boil and simmered for ten minutes.

Simmering salsa.

Simmering salsa.

Don’t forget to sterilize your jars before filling.

Filling sterilized jars with hot salsa.

Filling sterilized jars with hot salsa.

Once the jars are sealed, you place them in a boiling water bath for 45 minutes.

Boiling water bath.

The end result was twenty-one pints of salsa.  Yes, I realize there are only twenty jars in the photo, but Jamie already got into one.

Twenty-one jars of salsa.

Twenty-one jars of salsa.

With all the tomatoes, we decided to make tomato chips.  My favorite!  Using a slicer, we sliced the tomatoes 1/4″…

Slicing tomatoes.

Slicing tomatoes.

and placed them in the dehydrator.

Tomato filled dehydrator.

Tomato filled dehydrator.

At 125 degrees for nine hours, we finally had tomato chips.  As you can see, one or two are missing.  We had to test them.  Yummy!

Yummy tomato chips.

Yummy tomato chips.

But our day was not even half over at this point.  We transplanted tomato seedlings to larger containers.  Cross your fingers that they survive.  This is a skill I am hoping to learn and I am not very good at it yet.

Tomato seedlings.

Tomato seedlings.

Next, we went to participant, Marvin Cornett’s home.  (He is my father.)  We tilled his yard and created five grow boxes where we planted cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, cilantro and some radish seeds.

Participant, Marvin Cornett 74, with his planted grow boxes.

Participant, Marvin Cornett 74, with his planted grow boxes.

A very long day, but always fun when I get to play in the dirt!

Preparing the soil in the grow boxes.

Preparing the soil in the grow boxes

Happy Gardening ~