Monday, February 6, 2012

Trash to treasure [Hmm . . . this was supposed to post yesterday . . . not sure what happened]

Yesterday was Bountiful Baskets day and as usual I volunteered to help with the distribution. If there is produce that is not good enough for distribution to the members, it is put into the "chicken food" box and I take it home for the feathered girls. Usually it is stray lettuce leaves and maybe a couple of items with some decay on them. Chickens don't eat decay, so I always cut off that part before I give it to them.

However, this time in addition to the lettuce and a couple of strawberries, there were about 7 big tomatoes that needed just a small part cut off. The chickens would have enjoyed them, but I knew my family would enjoy them more in the form of salsa. I cleaned the tomatoes up and diced them, along with some other tomatoes we had on hand, diced up a small onion that was also in the box, and added a measured amount of Ball salsa seasoning along with the requisite vinegar for acidity.
I got 8.5 pints (4 liters for the Aussies, Canuks, and Koreans). I processed 7 pints so the salsa is shelf-stable, and refridgerated the other 1.5 jars because my canner only holds 7 jars and I didn't want to run a second canner load for just the 2 jars.


All 9 jars of salsa cost me only about $2 total, which was the cost of the vinegar and the salsa mix. Oh, and a bit for the electricity for cooking/canning.

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