South of the Mason-Dixon Line

I have been trying to come up with good things about living in the Washington, DC area, and so far, being in the most expensive city in America the same time that my student loans have entered repayment, it's been hard to see the good.  One thing, though - the growing season is much longer.


Behold, the October tomato.


After discovering that the apples in the nearby orchard were not yet ready (seriously?  Aren't apples a September crop?), we discovered that the pick your own tomatoes were still up and running.  Sure, this was two weeks ago, but we finally got around to using the 20 pounds that the DH insisted on collecting.


When life hands you tomatoes, can some salsa.  Made a quick batch of corn & black bean salsa, added lime juice to maintain acidity, and into the water canner for 20 minutes.  Then again, *someone* in the house has already eaten through a third of the batch, so perhaps the 20 pounds of tomatoes actually wasn't enough.

It's your basic salsa recipe from a reputable canning source (Ball Blue Book, your local Land Grant University Extension service) to ensure that you are not going to kill yourself, then adding a can of black beans and an ear of corn taken off the cob.  I do add an extra tablespoon of lime juice just to make sure I'm preserving the acidity of the original recipe.  It might be a good idea to actually test the acidity of your salsa before canning, but if someone plans on eating all of it in the next 2 weeks, this becomes less and less critical.