Cooked Salsa

I forgot to take a picture of the finished product!  Oh well.  I have been waiting for the past month to have enough tomatoes and peppers ripe at the same time to be able to make this recipe.  I had high hopes of canning this but realized after I had already started, that I needed pint size jars and I only had quart size.  So I ended up putting some in the fridge for immediate consumption and freezing the rest in small freezer jam jars.  I am going to ask Santa for a second freezer for my garage!  I got this recipe from my friend Cami several years ago.  On all of the vegetable measurements, I just approximated.  I'm guessing this recipe would yield about 10-12 pint size jars.

Cooked Salsa

12 cups tomatoes, peeled and chopped*
5 cups green bell peppers, chopped and seeded
5 cups yellow onions, chopped
1 1/2 cups jalapeno peppers, chopped and seeded
5-8 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 cup white vinegar (I used maybe half a cup.)
3 T. salt
1 T. pepper
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 cup dried onions
2 cans tomato paste (I only used one.)
1 bunch fresh cilantro, chopped (I used 2-3 T. dried.)

Combine everything but the dried onions, tomato paste and cilantro (unless you use dried) and simmer for 2 hours uncovered on the stove top.  Add the dried onions and tomato paste and simmer ten more minutes.  Then add the fresh cilantro and simmer five minutes more.

*To peel tomatoes, blanch them.  That is, put them in a pot of very hot (nearly boiling) water and let them sit for 60 seconds.  Then transfer them to a sink of freezing cold water.  The skins should pull off easily.