Homemade Salsa

*** Update ***
Our volunteer tomato bush returned this year and is putting out larger tomatoes and in more quantity. We got almost seven pounds of tomatoes when we came back from vacation. We're now using fresh cilantro and more bell peppers and the taste is unbelievable. I've also cheated a few times and added some canned tomatoes. You can tell the difference.

If you want the recipe, click on the word "this" in the last sentence of the next paragraph.
*** Update ***

We've had a tomato bush that is putting out tomatoes at an amazing rate. I'm not one to eat raw tomatoes (although I do in a salad) and these are roma tomatoes - too small for a sandwich. So I came up with the idea of making homemade salsa. I found this recipe and with a few changes, I had some good homemade salsa.

The hardest part of this recipe was blanching and peeling the tomatoes. I realized that in all of my (quite limited) cooking, I've never blanched before. In fact, I wasn't even sure I knew how. My wife explained the process and I felt confident. (I poured boiling water over the tomatoes and let them sit for 15 minutes or so).

The website calls for 5 pounds of tomatoes, since I only had about a pound, I changed it to 10 servings (website automatically scales ingredients). I had four colors of bell peppers and wanted to use some of each, so I chopped a small amount of each (very colorful salsa!). I didn't want to try jalapeno peppers, so I left that out completely as I did the celery. Instead of garlic, I substituted garlic salt. I intended to use a purple onion, but at the last minute used onion flakes (I wish I had used the onion).

My wife was in charge of adding the miscellaneous spices and she's not one to measure, so we ended up with more sugar and a sweeter salsa than expected. I was VERY impressed with my first attempt at salsa and would paste a picture of it here, except that someone took the last bit of it out of the fridge (Nena dear?). I noticed that the flavor was much better after it spent the night in the fridge, which means next time, I'll prepare it a day ahead of time.

I am wondering if the flavor would be as good with other kinds of tomatoes. It takes a LOT of roma tomatoes to make a pound.

I should also point out that our tomato plant is a volunteer. We didn't plant this bush. It grew in the middle of our roses and is taking over the rose bushes. We're amazed that it's there...