I wanted to make salsa again this year.

I had bought this salsa mix in OK when we visited our daughter and son-in-law last August (2020).

I meant to make it LAST year, but when I came back from the states in late August/first of September, I was sick…COVID. It took a while to recover, and I didn’t make any salsa. That was one thing that got tossed out the window.

But THIS year…I want to.

But, as you know, I’m trying to Focus - and I mean, FOCUS on getting those charity quilts done. Of course, I have to do other things, but I am still trying to do my quilting of those big ones - one a day - among other things - until I finish.

So…I decided to split up making the salsa into two days this year. The above focus thing is one of the reasons for that - the other two reasons are - Sat - the day you are reading this - it’s supposed to be much colder - 12 C (53F) for a high, and lastly - our electricity is cheaper on Saturdays/Sundays. So, for all those reasons, I decided to make the salsa on Saturday this year. My oven is 100% electric.

For my preparations for today - I had to buy all the ‘stuff’. I decided to get it all from our local bazaar - like a farmer’s market.

I went looking for tomatoes, peppers - green, yellow, orange, red, garlic, onion and hot peppers. They don’t sell paste tomatoes at our local deep discount stores, and we figured that buying from the local dealers would be a better way to support our local farm/produce people. There’s also a good chance that the produce is fresher if I buy local than if I get it at the supermarket.

These front ones are the canning paste (plum) tomatoes. I only paid 2 zl/kilo so about 23 cents/lb. for them. They aren’t all that great, however. I didn’t really see them very well until I had them at home. Many of them are quite small. And that’s a lot of work.

So…

I bought 25 kilos of tomatoes from one person and 6 more (bigger/better ones) from another dealer. The place where I got the most - they were cheaper, but not as nice.

I also bought peppers of all the colors - red, orange, yellow and green and a handful of hot ones.

I got everything else from this dealer - the peppers, onions, garlic and hot peppers.

Then I bought onions - both yellow and purple, and 4 garlic bulbs. I had brought the salsa seasoning mix purchased in OK at a store like Rural King when we were visiting our daughter and son in law in August, 2020.

Taking the empty container back. Here it is in my car - I put plastic under it to protect the car’s front seat.

After we bought the food - my husband was the mule - he carried all the stuff to the car.

I didn’t venture far, though - I wanted to get the items purchased quickly, so instead of walking around and searching all over, I just bought from almost the first venders I saw. The prices were better than I had hoped for, so why not? Why waste time walking all over? I didn’t want to. It also meant it was much easier for him to carry it to the car.

After we bought the food, we went to another store, close by, and found these very cool lids for the jars. They are so fun. Cost for 10 lids was about $1.10. You can reuse them if they don’t get bent when you take them off. I’m in love with the designs on them.

I spent this on supplies - 50 zl, 70 zl, 30 zl and 35 zl for the lids. That’s a total of 185 zl. That is $47.28.

We’ll see how much I make with that. The best thing is, I will know what it is in the salsa and it won’t be full of a lot of strange things that you can’t pronounce - except that this time I’m using that big mix of salsa seasoning mix. I’ve never used that before. I already have the jars and I’m not counting electricity. I also do not remember how much the salsa seasoning mix cost. I will probably throw in some other spices I have in my cabinets. I also still have some citric acid that I will put in each jar before I seal and finish.

The man where we got the 25 kilos of canning plum tomatoes asked us to bring back the plastic container, so naturally, we promised to do so. Once I got home, I knew that I wouldn’t want to do it next week, so I took out the tomatoes - put them on the countertop, separating most of them so they don’t touch each other. Then I went ahead and took the plastic container back to the bazaar. I figured there wasn’t going to be a better time than “now”. I also knew I wanted to spend some time quilting today and wanted to take it back before I did anything else. The bazaar isn’t far away - about 10 minutes by car.

So here you go - my supplies! So pretty!

Hopefully the Monday’s blog post will feature what I made. Check back!

Have a great day wherever you are reading this! Thanks for coming along with me on my quilting/sewing journey!

Be sure to check out what my sis has for you in the store here!

Here’s one of the beauties we have!

Making Salsa - part 1 - Prep