Castanet

I want to make home made salsa tomorrow. Do you peel your tomatoes or leave the skin on? Does it make a difference if I am water bath canning the jars of salsa? Just thought I would ask for your thoughts. I have gone through many recipes and some peel and some don't. Novice canner question I know;) Your thoughts are appreciated, thanks!

I'd peel since it's easy to do and the bits of skin won't get stuck in your teeth.

I don't peel the tomatoes. Making salsa is already a huge job so I don't add to the work. I dice the tomatoes fairly small so the bits of skin arent even noticeable.

One hint : use disposable gloves when chopping the hot peppers.

I (my spouse) peels them for me, so it's not an issue for me! All aside, I don't like little bits of skin in my salsa or tomato sauce. I tried making tomato sauce this year, with skin on. I boiled it for about an hour and then used an immersion blender. However, I still found bigger bits of skin in my tomato sauce

We boil the tomatoes(for a few minutes) to get the skin off.
Boil and then rinse under cold water so that you can remove the skin, without burning your fingers.
Then we strain them in a colander and get rid of most of the juice to make for a thicker salsa.
If you don't drain off most of the juice, you will have runny salsa...
It all depends what kind of tomatoes you have, but thicker salsa is more desirable IMO.

My DW does not put Tomato's in her Salsa. She uses Tomato juice only.

Use Roma's , less juice and leave the skin on

I have made gazzillions of jars of salsa over the years. I started off following this recipe from Canadian Living magazine but over the years I've basically gotten a feel for doing it and do my own thing as far as peppers.
http://www.canadianliving.com/food/recipe/peppy-salsa

I DETEST green peppers so much that I almost gag just typing the words ! LOL ! So I NEVER EVER use them ...I prefer red, yellow, orange - any colour but green!
But the one thing I DO KNOW for sure that I've found as an important step is to use the tomato paste. It really does help to thicken the salsa. I too always blanch the tomatoes (I use as many Roma tomatoes as possible - they're more meaty). But the other thing I do is make it a 2 day job. Pain in the butt but worth it. I blanch, clean & roughly chop the tomatoes the day before. I shove them into a mesh bag, press slightly & drain in a colander overnight. Then the next day is the cooking day. After I cook it all to the thickness I want I fill the jars, flip upside down for about 15 minutes and then bring them back up. I never have had one not seal and avoid that whole re-cooking water bath nonsense. A previous job in a well-known establishment taught me that shortcut.

I gave up on home made salsa, too watery and too much vinegar called for.

But what you're describing sounds terrific in solving that one problem.

We make homemade HP sauce every second year, wonderful stuff. Lots of recipes on the 'net for it. Long slow cooking time is the key, hours!

Salsa sort of Mexican style..: 4 tomato's, 1/2 to 1 white onion, at least 1/2 cup cilantro. maybe 1/2 jalapeno. Chop pretty small. Mix in a bowl, chill in fridge over night. squeeze 1/2 lime just before serving with taco chips.

Big hit when I take as an appetizer.

That sounds like the recipe flavours used at TEDs Mexican restaurant in Lake Country. New mexican place, we tried the soft tacos. Now don't expect American sized portions, because that isn't happening. But of the three tacos, we ate two and took one with us for much later. Never felt deprived.