These are for conning correct rather than just for fresh use? I'll take the easy part of the question first :). Tomato juice. There are instructions for canning tomato juice available at NCHFP and in the Ball canning books. There are also instructions for a vegetable blend tomato juice.

Canning tomato products

Salsa is much more complicated. As you probably know there are literally hundreds of salsa recipes out there. Unfortunately the majority of them are not safe for canning because of pH, density, and botulism risks. They can be eaten fresh or frozen but not canned without a great deal of risk, lethal risk in some cases because it is a mix of low-acid vegetables, is not pressure canned, and is eaten fresh from the jar without any further cooking to destroy the toxins that may have developed in it.

So when it comes to canning it we only have a few tested recipes to work with. The NCHFP recipes are in the same link above. The Ball books have a few more. And there is Annie's Salsa. All of them can be alteredto personal taste after opening the jars, but none of them allow us to alter the ingredient levels prior to canning without substantially increasing the risk. So if you like lots of onions - low acid and high on the botulism scale - in your salsa you may be find you can only bring them up to the level you wishafter opening the jar.

Hope this helps.

Dave

Well i decided to give Annie's recipe a try again. Its in the waterbath as we speak. I didn't drain the tomatoes and it appears thinner than I remember the first time. I don't think my jalapenos were as spicy as previous years. Maybe tomorrow night I'll a different recipe a try.

Is it more heat you are after or just more onions? If more heat then use a different, hotter pepper than jalapenos. If it is just more onions then try the Choice Salsa recipe at NCHFP as it has many more onions. Otherwise the only way around that is adding more chopped onions after opening the jar and that is easy to do.

Dave

For tomatoes, where all I really want is a juice or thin sauce, I core and place cut up tomatoes in a crock pot, usually filling the thing to the rim. This is particularly good for tomatoes that are less than perfect, with cracks or other flaws that make it harder to skin and can whole. Whether I set it at a high or low setting depends on how long I have before I want to process. When I determine they have cooked enough so that skins and seeds will come out easily, I run all of it through a sieve to remove them, then place it back in the crock pot, set at high until it is bubbling nicely. This amount of tomatoes (in my 6 qt crock pot filled at the beginning) perfectly fits about 4 finished quarts, which fits my small weighted gauge pressure canner perfectly. I fill the washed and sterilized quart jars/lids/etc. as called for, add lemon juice and salt, and process at 10lbs for 15 to 20 minutes. This is in line with the NCHFP guidelines. Besides washing them and placing them directly in the freezer whole, this is my easiest way to process tomatoes, really a thick juice or thin sauce(usually), that can then be used in soup or in making rice, or to make a really good tomato soup by blending with some sauteed onions, garlic, maybe celery, and herbs; salt and pepper to taste; heated and then served with a dollup of sour cream or yogurt or a little cream. Great stuff!!