Cha Cha Cha!

(Insert Salsa Music Here!)

Today was salsa day at mom's house. It brings a spicy end to the canning season. So far we've done sweet pickles, strawberry jam, and cherry jam. (Michigan is known for its cherries.) There's a slight possibility that mom will mix up some raspberry jam later if she has time, but for all intents an purposes we're done with the canning season.

The day started innocently enough. Mom started preparing our home grown tomatoes (plus a few from the local farmers market) and set to work on our secret salsa recipe. Dad and I ran to the store on a quest for the peppers. The kind we had were to "hot" for those of us with sensitive digestive systems. We also had to get our hunting licences so we rode together to save on gas. The plan was to get the licences, then grab the peppers and make a run for the border..aka, Salsa Central.

Our first stop put us at Meijers. After hunting down a clerk (who was caught smooching his lady friend,) we got our licences and wandered over to the vast produce aisle. Strike one, they had every type of chili pepper known to man EXCEPT the one we were looking for. Ok, we can handle this. There's another store close by, we'll just run in and grab some there. Strike 2, the only kind of peppers that Ric's grocery store has are bell peppers. While we want our salsa mild, we do want a little "bite" to it. On the road again we go. By now we've been gone for over an hour on an errand that should have taken half an hour. We'll stop at Wal-Mart because they have just about everything and it's on the way home. Guess what, Strike 3. We're out. Apparently banana peppers are REALLY popular because there isn't one in the entire city. After a quick check of the recipe we settled on some yellow bell peppers (for the yellow color) and some Poblano peppers for the bite.

Mom had gotten a new mixer with a chopper attachment and had everything all chopped and ready to go while Dad and I were gone. The tomato mixture was bubbling away on the stove top. This is the part I like best. Adding and tweaking the ingredients like some high school biology experiment. A little garlic here, a little more pepper there... let simmer for a while and Voila, Salsa!

Besides being chief taster, my job while the salsa was cooking was to make sure that the jars were clean and ready to use. Mom and I set up out assembly line and we were off. (Dad had gone onto another job at that point.) Mom ladled the hot salsa mixture into the jars and I put the lids and seals on each one. Then it was time to place the jars back into the boiling water to finish the process. All that work for 23 jars of salsa. We had 24, but one of the jars broke. So we had one casualty for a full days work.

Well gang, It's time for this little chili pepper's siesta. I'm dreading going into work tomorrow after having a long weekend. Who knows what havoc's been wreaked by the weekend crew while I was away. I'll see you tomorrow. Olé!