A Delectable Dance For The Taste Buds!
So, yesterday I walked out into the garden to water, and returned to the kitchen with this times four:
Of course, there are the common zucchini recipes that one produces this time of year: zucchini bread (banana, blueberry, pineapple, and double chocolate versions unite!), muffins, and cake all come to mind. However, one of my very favorite zucchini foods is zucchini salsa.
Not only is it absolutely, amazingly tasty, one eight pint batch uses ten cups of shredded zucchini. That is around three, ten inch zucchinis!
Another bonus is that my children inhale the stuff, and it is veg city composition wise, yay!
I watched one of my friends, a Navy master chief, sneak a jar away from the crowd and eat the entire thing, it is that good! Well, it is a source for potential food hoarder behavior amusement at the very least, so that alone makes it worth spending the time on creating a batch!
Zucchini Salsa
10 cups peeled, shredded zucchini
4 chopped onions (I used sweet onions)
2 green peppers
2 red peppers
1/4 cup pickling salt
1 Tablespoon yellow mustard
1 Tablespoon garlic powder
1 Tablespoon cumin
1 Tablespoon pickling salt
2 Tablespoons of cornstarch
1 1/2 Tablespoons red pepper flakes
4-5 chopped tomatoes (about 8 ounces a piece)
12 ounces tomato paste
1 cup brown sugar (I have reduced this to 3/4 cup and it still tastes great!)
2 cups of white vinegarThis is a two day or prep in the morning can at night process, I have
done both.In a large bowl place the zucchini, onions, and both kinds of peppers.
sprinkle with 1/4 cup of salt and mix well. Cover the bowl and let it
sit a minimum of 7-8 hours.After salt soakage, rinse and drain thoroughly. Get out the largest
stock pot you have and place the zucchini, onion, pepper mix into the
pot. Add everything else in the recipe ingredients list to the pot.Bring the pot contents to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 15
minutes.Load salsa into whatever size canning jars you wish and process whatever way suits your fancy. I am at 2500 feet elevation, so I water bath can this recipe in pint jars for 20 minutes. This might be an excessive processing time, but I don't mess around with bacteria, and I find that any extra cook time really brings out the flavor in this recipe. The choice is up to you!!!
I use my food processor to do all the shredding and chopping prep work. The old school grater and chopping by hand method was done for years, but I love, love, love the food processor!
Yay grater blade attachment!!
The smell of all those sweet onions being chopped up not by hand brought about tears of joy!
Okay, I just included the pre-macerated red pepper pic because I thought that they looked pretty.
A shot of the salt soak, a nice little infusion to tenderize the flesh. That didn't sound creepy. At all.
Rinse and drainage time! Note to all you homesteaders, try not to do this after putting a few tons of hay in your barn. The salt burns the flesh, and by flesh I mean all of the hay scratches on my arms! YEOUCH!!
Whenever I load something into a jar using a strainer, I kind of think that having one around when I eat might not be a bad idea as I tend to wear a good majority of my food. Sadz.
After the softening, dehydrating salt soak, it is time for a nice steamy water bath. Still kinda creepy. Veggie spa creepy.
I better stop with this theme before Seth Rogen makes a movie about it.
Who knew that all it took to crush Spiderman was some zucchini salsa?
And as always, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's green hued, rather spicily dusted iPhone.
