Yesterday I...

made 7.5 gallons of YUMMY smoked salsa (which, just so you know, is a LOT more work than it looks like! lol)!

This involved the following:

1. Coring, quartering & seeding 3 cases of tomatoes

2. Peeling & quartering 16 pounds of onions

3. Roasting & peeling 22 heads of garlic

4. Removing seeds from 200 jalapenos (burned the skin on my hands, too - didn't have any gloves!)

5. Smoking tomatoes, jalapenos & onions on the big wood smoker outside (actually Kelly does this part :) YAY Kelly!)

After veggies were smoked I:

1. Removed skins from tomatoes & put through the food processor (82 cups of chopped tomatoes)

2. Put jalapenos & onions in food processor (14 cups of onions, 6 cups of jalapenos)

3. Chopped 2 bunches of cilantro

4. Pureed the garlic (about 4 cups)

All of these ingredients plus several bottles of red wine vinegar & canning salt - and voila! The BEST salsa EVER!

Of course... my work was not over. It all still needed to be put in jars and sealed. Luckily we had sterilized all of the jars the night before...several dishwasher loads!

The canner holds 7 jars at a time... this was a looooong process! LOL

What we ended up with: 3 Quarts, 48 pints & 9 half-pints of pretty-dang-spicy yumminess!!!! Yes, this seems like a lot, I know. But after my brother, Josh, takes his 20 or so jars, and we give the quarts to a friend's parents, and give out random jars throughout the year - by next summer it will be GONE!