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!

Modified Gluten Free Banana Bread

I haven't been blogging that much recently, but will record here a gluten-free, wheat-free banana bread recipe I used recently, with the modifications I made. The original recipe is from the back of Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour:

Ingredients

1/3 cup Canola Oil
2/3 cup Brown Sugar, packed
2 large Eggs
1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
1 3/4 cups Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour
2 tsp. Baking Powder
1 1/4 tsp. Cinnamon
1 tsp. Xanthan Gum
1/2 tsp. Salt
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe Bananas
1/2 cup finely chopped Pecans or Walnuts
1/2 cup Raisins

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease 9x5-inch non-stick loaf pan. Cream together oil, sugar, eggs, and vanilla in large bowl with eletric mixer. Add flour, xanthan gum, salt, baking powder and cinnamon to egg mixture, alternating with bananas. Beat until smooth. Stir in nuts and raisins. Batter will be somewhat soft. Transfer to pan. Bake for 1 hour. Serves 10

Modifications

One, I used a whip and a plastic spatula (scraper) for stirring rather than an elecric mixer. An electric mixer is generally not recommended for banana breads, and extra beating is not recommended for high altitude cooking (which I was doing, although I didn't pay any attention to that fact before I started).

Two, I puréed the walnuts in a coffee grinder (we don't have a cuisinart or blender at our little house because of space considerations, but may shortly get a small blender). The addition of puréed walnuts rather than chopped walnuts was a little like adding 1/2 cups extra flour with a minor or trace amount of extra oil.

Three, I didn't use any raisins.

Four, after mixing everything together, I considered the high-altitude aspect of my baking situation. (It's usually better to consider this prior to beginning!) I looked up adjustments for cooking at 5000 feet (I'm at about 6500 feet), and, thinking that the batter was too thick and too dry, I made the following adjustments:

1. I added two or three large dollops of applesause.
2. I added one or two smaller dollops of sour cream.
3. I then added a minor scattering of extra flour after wondering if the mixture was too moist.
4. I added a little extra cinnamon for more flavor.
5. I increased the cooking temperature by 25°F, and possibly could have decreased the cooking time but didn't.
6. It would be normal to reduce the baking powder as part of the high-altitude cooking adjustment, but I didn't consider adjustments early enough to do that.

The resulting loaf seemed too dry to me when it first came out of the oven, but after placing in a plastic baggie overnight it didn't seem that way at all. Next time I will probably look for a recipe that uses applesauce to begin with, and modify it for wheat-free flour. I'm wondering if some combination of applesauce and sour cream could be substituted for a half or more of the oil.

Sorry, no pictures - it's already gone!