Monday, September 22, 2014

¡Verde!

Temps were really supposed to drop last night, getting down into the mid-to-upper 40s, and highs in only the 50s today, so I figured I better clear a bunch of the tender veggies out of the garden. First I pulled the last of the tomatoes that were close to ripe, added them to what I'd had ripening on the counter from a harvest earlier in the week, and got some sauce going on the stove top. More on that in a later post.

Once that was going I figured, eh, I'll go out and get the peppers, eggplants and raspberries. While there I kept bopping against the volunteer tomatillos that, for some reason, I let go rampant even though I told myself I wasn't going to bother with them this year. I bought three plants last year, crammed them in one tomato cage, they took over, and I don't think I even used them. This spring? There were hundreds, if not thousands, of volunteers in the bed. ARGH! I partly blame them for some of my tomato plants not doing well - but I guess the blame is really mine for letting those volunteers get up to a couple feet tall before getting ripped out, right? So I cleared out all the tomatillos that were smothering the now-frail tomato plants, figuring I was done.

Then the second round of tomatillo volunteers came up. Allllright, let's do this. And the bees LOVE the flowers. They plants were alright and controlled for awhile, but over the last month they just took off like crazy, smothering peppers, tomatoes, etc. So yesterday I figured I'd see what they were giving me - while none of the husks were papery and dry, there were some hefty fruits inside - so in addition to harvesting raspberries, peppers and eggplants, I got tomatillos.


And since I was trashing the kitchen making tomato sauce, dicing and freezing peppers, and making up "chili packs" of bell peppers, jalapenos and onions for the freezer, I figured I'd do some more damage to the kitchen and whip up some salsa verde, with the understanding it was going in the freezer, not getting canned.  I have no idea if it'll be any good once thawed...if nothing else I figure I'll cook chicken or pork tenderloin in it.


Look how vibrant and green all of the peppers and tomatillos are!!  Here's the recipe I went with, although I ended out making a triple batch based on the tomatillos I had.  Didn't have all the right pepper types, so I subbed in what I had - jalapenos with serranos still made a pretty spicy salsa!


Sorry, I didn't take any "after" pics - by the time this stuff was all roasty, I wanted it done.  I was already juggling too many things...  When all was done I got six 1/2-pint jars and two quart zip lock bags in the freezer.  Smells great, tastes great - good stuff!

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