Living Waterside

It was time for a break from spaghetti sauce. The cliff notes version of canning spaghetti sauce is that peeling skins and seeding tomatoes sucks! It takes forever and is messy, even with the hot boil and cold plunge process that purports to make the skins just slip off. It was just not fun and a lot of work for just 3 quarts of jarred sauce that didn’t smell as good as Prego.

After sauce, I decided salsa would be more fun. Spicier! More festive (Ay caramba, a fiesta!)! More fun! Then, I read the recipe. Step one – peel the damn tomatoes. Really? Can’t any recipe just be put the damn things in a blender, pour into a jar, boil, and open the bag of Tostitos? Cripes.

So, I hot water boiled and ice water plunged a freaking load of tomatoes. I am the idiot, though, because I didn’t have enough from the garden (which, by the way, I learned you can freeze and use when you need them – more on that later) who went to the farmer’s market and bought 30 MORE pounds of the red beauties. Like we need 20 jars of salsa…

While the tomatoes were sitting to drain (yes, I learned that tomatoes are approximately 95% water), it was time to slice and dice again – this time onions and a variety of peppers. Being an idiot (see above), I didn’t think I needed to follow the “Kitchen Advice” of wearing gloves when handling the peppers (for reference, we had Anaheim, Chipotle, Jalapeno, and some round orange/red one I can’t identify). Why would I need to protect myself, because I did learn in junior high home economics that pepper seeds can be hot and can burn (to be clear, I am an experiential learner, which means that in junior high, I touched my eye with a pepper oiled hand and thought my eyeball was on fire). Needless to say, I was very careful. I stretched my arms out as far as possible from the cutting board, and turned my head each time I sliced into a pepper. (One might argue that this is on par on the dangerous scale by not looking at what I’m doing with a sharp knife in my hand, but I haven’t cut a finger off…yet). I even closed my eyes while I was scooping the seeds into the trash can. Other than wrapping myself in Saran Wrap, I’m not sure how much safer I could get.

Then it hit me. I was having trouble breathing. My eyes started watering and my fingers were tingling. And the sneeze attack came – it felt like 20 in a row, which when you’re a sneeze holder like I am, makes your brain feel like it’s going to explode and your eyes will pop out of your head with the pressure. (Picture a googlie eyed wild haired woman in the kitchen afraid to put her hands anywhere). I wondered if I could search the Internet for self-tracheotomy. I had flash backs of reading a book where someone used a Bic pen and a steak knife and they were able to open the airway. I think the person lived…

I decided that getting out of the kitchen would be a good idea, because it was infused with nasty pepper oil. What I failed to remember is that I would be bringing with me my infected hands and really didn’t have Stretch Armstrong arms so that I could leave them in the kitchen. I first hit the powder room to wash with my favorite soap. No change. Then decided that I’d read somewhere that vinegar would neutralize it. Great idea, except it was in the contamination incubator kitchen. Thus, it was back to the Internet to read all the purported solutions – milk, soap, lemon, water, rubbing alcohol, vodka. Now we were getting somewhere! Of course, each blog, website, post, and useful tip included “wear gloves”. Do they really think that anyone would be searching for “how to neutralize a pepper burn” if they had worn gloves?

With enough hand washing to rub a few layers of skin off and use up the entire soap squirt bottle, I was able to breathe again. I grabbed the towels on the counter with the BBQ tongs and threw them in the washer and found some rubber gloves in the laundry room to finish with the cursed peppers.

Summary of salsa making – skinning tomatoes still sucks, but the resulting salsa has subtle hints of fresh parsley and cilantro, the sweetness of Roma tomatoes, and the “in your face” tang of rich BBQ flavor. Not bad for the first time.

Lesson learned – perhaps each recipe should state that you need adult supervision. This canning thing can be dangerous.