Recently, I sat inside on a cold spring day, watching the rain fall out the window, counting the days before we get to our expected last frost date (we still have about a month and a half), I found myself longing for fresh summer harvests, so I opened yet another of our jars of salsa and treated my tastebuds to a bit of summer.
Preserving food can extend your summer harvest well into the beginning of the next season. Our favorites for reliving the glory days of summer are canned salsa and blanched and frozen green beans.
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If you are a salsa lover this can be a fantastic way to decide what to grow in your garden. I gave a little advice on that in this article, but really, knowing what you plan to do with your harvest will really easily help to make your decisions. Grab a recipe and write out your seed list! If you will be water bath canning salsa make sure to use a tested and approved recipe!
My current favorite recipe is the Fresh Vegetable Salsa in the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. Because of this our Salsa Garden contains: tomatoes, onions, bell pepper, jalapeños, and garlic. The recipe says that it makes about 5 pint jars of salsa, I found that we were probably closer to 4 and a half, but overall a pretty close estimation. Last year I grew a mix of roma tomatoes and beefsteak roma hybrids. This year I am growing Amish Paste tomatoes and am hoping that this tomato helps our yields.
Last summer I made three batches of this salsa, and I know we are going to run out of it before I get to make the next round. Next year I am aiming to double my production at SIX batches to be able to give some away and to ensure that we have enough to make it through the year.
Bonus Recipe: Oven Cooked Salsa Chicken
What you need:
- Baking Dish
- Chicken Breast
- Salt and Pepper (optional)
- Salsa
- Olive Oil
You can cook this dish with as little or as much chicken as you can fit in your baking dish. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. Drizzle some olive oil in your baking dish and place your chicken in it. Salt and pepper your chicken before you add the salsa if you choose to add it.
Spread your salsa on top of the chicken breasts. Make sure if you are using a spoon to apply it, that you are not touching the chicken breast and then putting it back in your salsa jar. Try to keep the salsa on top of the breasts as much as possible, as it will crust in the bottom of the pan.
Bake for 30 minutes and check for an internal temperature of 165 degrees F. If it hasn’t reached 165 in the initial 30 minutes, pop it in in increments of 5 minutes until you get an internal temperature of 165 on a probe thermometer.
Once you hit that magic temperature taken your chicken out of the oven and shred along with the salsa baked on top. I like to use my Kitchen Aid mixer to speed up the process, but you can just as easily use two forks.
Serve as you like. We use our salsa chicken in quesadillas, tacos, and to top of nachos!
How do you use your summer harvest well into winter?
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