Cultured Salsa
Salsas are some of my most favorite cultured veggies. Family and friends devour this and never know that they just added hundred and millions of good bacteria’s to their bodies. You can make a lot and they keep all winter in the fridge. Super easy just chop and blend and super fantastic during tomato season. I have two favorite salsas. Each one has just a few different ingredients. I asked my family to taste test and each family member picked a different salsa. So I decided to publish them both and let you decide. When making these salsas it is important to remember one thing…
Wear gloves when chopping chili peppers. This lesson I have learned the hard way, while making these salsa’s one day. I completed the task and quickly cleaned the kitchen and jumped into the shower. Never realizing that the pepper seed juice that I had on my hands cannot washed off with soap and water. Needless to say I started to burn in the shower in places that best be described as delicate. Finally when I realized that soap was not going to take the burning and stinging away. I jumped out of the shower grabbed a towel and ran to the kitchen dripping wet and praying that nobody would see me. I opened my refrigerator and tried to pour a cup of kefir into a bowl while clinging to my towel with one hand, and then tried to sneak back to the shower to neutralize the infected areas with a neutralizing agent, my kefir. I finally admitted to my husband what I had done. His reply, ” Now that’s something I would have paid money to see”! An hour of squirming in my chair at a restaurant was a reminder that I probably should have taken some cooking classes in my life. They would have at least warned me of such hazards of cooking. Just please wear you gloves when seeding a pepper or you may just light up your life in more ways than one.
- 2 large tomatoes, coarsely chopped
- 1 Serrano pepper, seeded and coarsely chopped
- 2 teaspoons cumin
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- ½ large vidalia onion, coarsely chopped
- ¼ teaspoon salt, to taste
- ⅓ cup cilantro, coarsely chopped
- ⅛ teaspoon cayenne, to taste ( only if you like it hot)
- ½ tsp of Cultured Veggie Pck or 2 Tbsp kefir whey
- Place all ingredients in blender, and blend until smooth.
- Place in glass jars and seal.
- Sit on counter for 2 days to ferment and then transfer to refrigerator.
- Will last at least 6 months in refrigerator.
- 2 large tomatoes, coarsely chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 small red pepper chopped and seeded
- ½ large red onion, coarsely chopped
- 1 serrano pepper, seeded and coarsely chopped
- ½ lime juiced
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- ⅓ cup cilantro, coarsely chopped
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon of Caldwell cultured veggie pck or 2 Tbsp kefir whey
- Place all ingredients in blender, and blend until smooth.
- Place in glass jars and seal.
- Sit on counter for 2 days and then transfer to refrigerator.
- This will last at least 6 months in refrigerator.
That is one of the funniest damn stories I’ve read in a long, long time. Thanks for sharing.
Here’s a question… I live in the desert of Las Vegas. Just getting my raw, organic sprouting, fermenting mojo going again. Used to make my raw milk kefir when I lived in the NW.. but no raw milk here. Need the whey. Any suggestions? I have a jar of lactobacillus bulgarius. Can i perhaps sub that?
Thanks for any help. And again- funny, funny story. You’ll be telling that for many years.
you can use regular milk to make kefir because it makes the milk alive and you can use this to make kefir whey.
Have you ever used canned tomatoes when making cultured salsas?
Yes, I have and it works great.
Ive spent hours troubleshooting fermentation on the web and cant find an answer. I made fermented ketchup that tasted wonderful prior to fermenting. I used kefir whey and fermented for 5 days (recipe said 3-5 days). Then put it in the fridge for a few days. But it tasted like homebrew. It was covered lightly on the counter and had a lid on in the fridge. My friend’s turned out just fine. What happened? I used it to marinate steak. Then I also just tried kefir cheese and the soft cheese also had a very carbonates flavor, but was still usable. I really want to figure out this. Fermentation thing, but I am 0 for 2
And getting a bit gun shy now….
You should try placing a lid on your ketchup while fermenting and letting it ferment less time on the counter. Sounds like it is getting over fermented and having a lid to ferment with also helps keep other ferments.
Thanks for a terrific site, and I love the background color
I am new to the lacto-ferment process, and I recently made 6 jars of salsa with kefir whey.
They are now in the fridge, after the succeful lacto-ferment process. My question is since I am low on jars, can I empty out contents of all 6 jars into a pyrex bowl with lid and store in the fridge, thus enabling me to use jars for making Sauerkraut. Is there a reason to store in their original jar?
Thanks for your guidance and a happy Thanksgiving
Thanks Tina,
You can open them and change the container. I do this all the time.