Tuesday 6 September 2016

A Culinary First

   I've made no secret that I'm pretty handy when it comes to cooking. In fact, a lot of the meals in our house are prepared by me. Not Cordon Bleu, by anyone's standard, and I'll never get a Michelin rating, or make into Zagat's. But I'm a good enough cook to put together what I think is a 1st class meal.
   And while I've in the past done a full turkey dinner with trimmings (and apple pie for dessert), jambalaya, Cajun style hamburgers, and even Sauerbraten (a marinated German-style roast with ginger-snap gravy), there are still a few things I have not done in the kitchen.
   During my week off, I managed to accomplish something I never, EVER thought I'd do. I canned a batch of home-made salsa. Regular readers will know my wife is a great gardener, and for the 2nd year in a row grew tomato's, which I used in the recipe:
   It doesn't get much better than vine-ripened tomatoes from the garden. So, those, along with other ingredients, all went into my big stock pot for a simmer. And it looked pretty darn good while bubbling away, too: (Excuse the poor angle of the picture)
   The canning process wasn't that difficult, after a little instruction from my wife. and in the end, I finished with a dozen jars of my very own salsa!
   And it ain't half bad, either! I do need to add a little more 'heat' to it, and cut out some of the liquid that comes from the tomatoes, but we've already had a couple of jars. It will keep getting better the longer we leave it to set up.
   And, yes, I'm already looking at "tweaking" the recipe for the next batch, which will unfortunately not be made with our home grown, garden-fresh tomatoes. They all got used for this batch!

TTFN

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