Local Prepper Groups Meeting: How to Can Tomatillo Salsa Recipe

One of the local prepper groups/survival/homesteading groups that I started had a meeting where we learned how to can salsa. I will include a link to the tomatillo salsa recipe we used, and some super awesome knowledge I learned along the way.

The idea behind our local group is that it is separate from my online presence.  I don’t want to mix the two business wise.  Knowledge wise is another thing.  They work hand in hand.  It was fun this time around as well.  The first meeting we had, I had taught everyone how to power their home from their automobile.  This time was someone else’s turn to teach.

Removing Sanitized Jars

Now I had canned food, but for the sake of others, it is important to show up and support each meeting that I can make, so I do this.  We were being taught the process of canning salsa.  Well, I thought I had known enough.  I could can salsa, that was no big deal.  We I actually learned a few valuable tips while hanging out with some good people.

Many of the Ingredients

One thing that I already knew, that I feel I should revisit, is the fact that we were specifically doing a hot water bath method of canning.  When you do this you have to either have a high acid food, or add some vinegar to the food.  The reason for this is to inhibit the growth of bacteria.

Local Prepper Groups Meeting: How to Can Tomatillo Salsa Recipe: A couple members

Now one thing that I really didn’t know is that poblano peppers have a very tough skin that we need to get rid of.  The method that was used to aid in this, while also cooking the peppers, was to roast them over an open flame of a gas stove.  It quite possibly took 5 or more minutes per side.  By doing some research I found out that you can roast them in the oven, and also that probably the easiest way to roast them is by placing them in a toaster for 8-10 minutes where sides are bubbly and blackening.  Let them cool afterward so you don’t burn yourself.  Once they are cool enough you should be able to pinch and pull the skin right off.  Don’t do this unless you have some ventilation, because you will be making a mild pepper gas that will mess you up a bit.  When looking more into this, I learned that placing them in the freezer for about 15 minutes is a better way to go and actually works very well, just don’t let the onion get too hard.

Lookin’ Good

Next, when cutting onions, you want to refrigerate them for over half an hour to reduce the amount of burning and tearing when cutting.  This just sent me into a researching mode where I found that this method works only mildly:

• Cutting off the ends of the onion, peeling it, then soaking it for 15 minutes in a bowl of water will draw out the sulfuric compounds into the water.  This works very well but will result in a milder-tasting onion.
• One thing that will surprise you, is that you do not have to wait for soaking.  Just cut the onion under running water.  It is known to use a water spray to knock down Hydrochloric acid out of air.  I have been in a space that I couldn’t breath due to the acid, but spraying water all over the place removes the acid in the air.  I actually automated some equipment at work that used this method to remove acid out of a fume exhaust system before releasing clean air into the atmosphere.  Running water over the onion should do the same thing for you.  If you have a way to mist it, I would think it would work better.  The onion could get slippery under water though.
• The other two methods that work well are to wear goggles made for onions, which works but is kind of dumb, and just cut the onion right under the ventilation above your stovetop to remove the propanethiol S-oxide that is created when you cut before it can reach your eyes and react with the water on them creating the burning sulfuric acid.
• The best methods are probably freezing, then goggles, and then the vent.

See how much you can learn when you are actively ingaged in learning skills?  I thought I “knew enough” but I learned a lot more, didn’t I?

The recipe that we used may be found at http://simplyrecipes.com/m/recipes/canned_tomato_salsa.  IT WAS DELICIOUS with tortilla chips… very fresh tasting and chunky.