Green Tomato Salsa

This recipe is modified from a recipe on Farmgirl Fare.To see the recipe, click through to the original: Farmgirl Susan's No Sugar Green Tomato Relish. I haven't copied the entire recipe here because it's copyrighted, and because I didn't really change it that much. Thanks to @LizEnslin for the tip.

For me, it made about 2.5 pints.

My modifications, for freezing and not canning, are as follows:

• One of my green tomatoes was actually a slightly pink tomato on the inside. I don't think this matters much, unless you are canning, perhaps, where the acidity might make a difference. I chose what I thought were perfect green tomatoes, the kind that won't ripen, because I'm trying to ripen the rest of my greens! (And some recent luck on this: we have 2 more red tomatoes left. :))

• Instead of a red Bell pepper, I used one red and one yellow Bell pepper, and I added 2 large and 3 to 4 small Anaheim peppers, to boot.

• I used white rice vinegar; I didn't have any apple cider vinegar, so used what I had on hand. Also, because I wasn't canning the salsa but instead froze it in 2 pint containers, I used 1/2 cup vinegar. About 20 minutes into the 1 hour boiling process, I thought it smelled too vinegary {vinegar and I don't get along well), so I dumped some of the liquid and added some water, maybe 1/4 to 1/2 cup. (I didn't measure.)

• I added half of the jalapeño peppers 15 minutes before the one-hour boiling time was up, then added the rest to boil for the additional 5 minutes, instead of adding them all at the end. After munching on this salsa for a while, I'd say one could at least double the jalapeños. With the prescribed amount, the salsa is less than mild. (The heat seems to be strongest immediately after cooking; it diminishes later as all the flavors blend.)

• I added way more than 2 T cilantro, but didn't measure - a small batch bought at the store. Maybe that was a 1/4 to 1/3 cup?

• Initially, after all the cooking and mushing was done, I thought the 1 t cumin was way too strong. I might start with 1/2 t cumin next time, though the cumin seemed fine after the salsa sat overnight.

• The resulting salsa tasted too tart to me, so I added a small amount - 2 large "pinches" - of brown sugar. This is an old Sicilian trick, adding sugar to spaghetti sauce, which I applied to this non-Sicilian recipe. Just add a little to taste if you're not familiar with using brown sugar, or sugar. Of course, the recipe is no longer "no sugar" as in the original. Later, this seemed a little sweet to me, but didn't seem that way to MOH, so you may have to experiment.

This is an excellent, tasty, colorful green salsa. Yum!