Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Salsa: the abbreviated version

When I married Heath, I was joined to a family that loves hot food. I'm not sure I can put enough emphasis on the words loves and hot in the previous sentence. I can remember our first Fourth of July together, we had just gotten engaged and headed down for a weekend at his sister, Stacy's house. We lounged on her houseboat, skied (I was unsuccessful), danced, and ate loads of yummy food. It was there that I first witnessed the entire family enjoying a snack of Tabasco and Dorito's. Yes, that's right. Instead of pulling our peanut butter and crackers like my family, they chowed down on hot sauce.

From then on I knew that the love of hot and spicy foods was something that Heath had been instilled with, and from the very first year we were together, Heath has made homemade salsa. Not just any salsa, very, very hot salsa full of bright red tomatoes and only the hottest peppers. He even made jelly jars full of it for favors at our wedding!

This year, I really thought Heath was going to skip his salsa making project. He had plenty left from the previous year, his sister, Alison, had shared some of her's, and he just seemed too busy and caught up with the house to take the time.... until he came home from Paw Paw's last weekend with a box of garden grown tomatoes and a bag full of cowhorn peppers.


Here's the tomatoes all cut up. Yes, this is one of those huge plastic troughs from TSC. He usually makes enough to fill this up, but this year, he only made enough to fill it about a third full.


Here's all the peppers, onions, cilantro and spices.


The Doggett Family Recipe -- all ready to can.


While he usually makes 60-70 pints and quarts, he only made enough for a dozen jars this time. It should hold him though, because it's so hot, no one else ever eats it!

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