Almost Homemade Salsa

[ContainerTed]

Ted's Almost Homemade Salsa/Sauce

I kept remembering back a bunch of years to the time when Frito Lay and some others made little tins of picante sauce. It was mostly sauce, but had tiny bits of stuff in it. It came in mild and hot and was delicious with tortilla chips. Now, everything is SALSA and megachunkie with large pieces of veggies. Most of what I call the MODERN store-bought stuff is bitter or just unsweet - totally unpleasant to my taste buds.

So, I decided (as a lot of you have) to make my own. I looked for recipes, but none seemed to fit the bill for that little tin of picante taste.

So, in total frustration, I decided to experiment on my own. I knew what I wanted to end up with, and here's what I put together a few days ago.

Down at the Walmart store in the canning area, they have packets of "mrs Wages" Salsa and Sauce dry mix to which you only have to add tomatoes and vinegar. Here's what I did with one of those Salsa packets and it's scrumptious.

As stated on the dry mix packet, I put about 6 or so pounds of tomatoes thru the tomato mill and into a 5 quart pot on the stove. Immediately added:

2 tsps salt (your choice of type)
1 tsp black pepper
2 tbsp sugar (or to your taste)

Reduced by 30%, this yielded about 2.5 quarts and was about the thickness of tomato soup out of the can. The tomatoes were a combination of the many varieties I had on the counter. I simply chose the ripest ones - Reds, Pinks, Purples, yellows, multi's, large, small, etc.

To this base, I added the following:
1 Pckt Dry Salsa Mix
2 Tbsp Lemon Juice
2 Tbsp Minced Garlic
1/2 Tsp Cummin
1/2 Cup Yellow Onion (finely diced)
1/2 Cup Tomatillo (finely diced)
1/2 Cup each of Red, Yellow, Orange, and Green Sweet Peppers (finely diced)
1/2 Cup White Vinegar
Additional Salt, Pepper, and sugar to taste.

I think you can add any peppers you want, but the mix I started with contained dehydrated chile and jalapeno peppers and was medium hot - even though it was labeled as "MILD". I chose a mix of pepper colors for eye appeal and used bells and tapers - whatever was there. The mix has other dehydrated goodies in it as well.

At this point, I began reducing it further to get it really thick. Got tired of reducing and added enough corn starch that I could get slick temporary peaks on the mixture. Tried it and it was pretty good while still hot. Let it cool and stuck it in the fridge. When it got cold, it was like the flavor just "flowered". It also thickened up more and a chip stuck in was fully coated when drawn back out, and it had some of the goodies on it.

There's a lot of folks who see some of these recipes and know they're for cooks of greater experience. This is one that anybody can make and it is easier than trying to find all the extra spices and such.

Ted