Ground cherry salsa

Ground cherries are super easy to grow. One of my favorite recipes to make with them is salsa. I haven't found a safety tested canning recipe so I freeze it in mason jars or food saver bags. Usually all the ingredients are ready in my garden at the same time, except cilantro which might have gone to seed by then - I am going to try succession sowing for cilantro this year as many of my late summer and fall recipes need it.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups of ground cherries (could be half ground cherries and half tomatoes)
• 1/2 cup sweet pepper
• 1 cup onion
• 2 jalapenos
• 1/8 cup cilantro
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 tbsp lime or lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground pepper

I usually multiply this recipe many times over to do a big batch. Typically I use a food processor, so I process one ingredient at a time since they take different amounts of processing (by the time the jalapenos were chopped, the tomatoes would be mush...) A lot of liquid will come off, try to drain off as much as possible before adding the seasonings and packing the salsa for storage. 

If you are making a small batch to eat fresh, you could hand chop the ingredients and it will look prettier.

When freezing in mason jars, it's best to leave a lot of headspace and use jars that don't have a "shoulder" (for example wide mouth pint jars), which are less likely to break. Food saver bags are safer in the sense that you don't have to worry about breakage, but I try to avoid the plastic waste. 

When you thaw the salsa, more liquid will come out, I usually drain it off before serving. 

It's great with tortilla chips, in wraps, or with cheddar on even on pizza or cheese toast.