Salsa Day.

Here are a few pictures of SALSA DAY. We started out with three bushells of Tomatoes. That's six boxes. Ten pounds of chopped onions, probably five pounds of chopped green peppers and countless hot peppers, that Jodie bravely chopped by hand.

The tomatoes were blanched, peeled, cored and then thrown by the cup fulls. 96 cups to be exact. Do you have any idea how much 96 cups of tomatoes are? A LOT! that's how many.

Things continue to be crushed, added and stirred until it is all together, then the cooking begins.

While all this is being done, the jars have to be cleaned, sanitized and made ready for the hot tomato guts to be added. Once those are filled. (76 jars or around abouts)(double the amount in above picture) they THEY have to go into a hot bath in boiling water for twenty minutes or so. Then you stand around and wait, and wait to hear those little tops POP which tells us that they have sealed. OMG that is the best damn sound. It means we are almost finished.

This entire process takes about 11 hours. Start in the morning, finish way into the night. THEN....we clean up the tomatoes guts, which have a way of splattering everywhere. Once everything is cleaned, scrubbed, reloaded into my car. I then have another hours drive home. To unload and put away all the stuff. And by stuff I mean....

40 jars of salsa.

4 canning pots.

2 50 cup soup pots.

strainers, ladles, jar holders, lid magnets.

and many many other things I can't think of right now.

Then you sit down and think... I NEVER WANT TO DO THIS AGAIN. But we do. Every September.

But I gotta tell ya, I think SALSA DAY is easier than COOKIE DAY. Which comes in December. Oh God, only three months till Cookie day.