Tag: Tomatillos

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Dos salsas

Really, tomatillos, the fruit that keeps on giving. I’ve got 5 to 10 tomatillo plants going in the garden. I didn’t plant them. They just seem to grow. As far as I can see the only thing you do with them is make salsa which is fine but there’s only so much salsa one can consume on a regular basis. Last year I made some tomatillo lime jelly that was good but what do you do with that? Sort of an exciting thing to taste once or twice but then . . . I just noticed it in the back of my refrigerator the day before yesterday.

After all the rest of the produce was picked and pickled I grudgingly collected the tomatillos more out of fear of what those seeds would produce next year if I didn’t get rid of them than that I’d planned on making salsa. But I did make salsa. Red and Green.

The green is avocados, lime, cilantro. The red is tomatoes, peaches, more cilantro for Ann W and chili powder. Oh and tomatillos.

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Vulcanized chicken

Imagine my delight when I saw Melissa Clark’s recipe for poached chicken breast with tomatillos. Unfortunately the recipe (here) arrived in mid-winter when my tomatillo supply was low, actually, nonexistent. But poached chicken breasts are perfect diet and according to Melissa Clark these are poached in the oven and do not get rubbery since they are slow-roasted in a low oven. Hers may not, mine could easily have been inflated and used on a 14-wheeler. I followed her recipe exactly. 

I ate them. They were chewy but edible. Particularly with the green sauce. If I can remember this recipe next summer when I have tomatillos…and I will have them no matter that I won’t plant any. There will be plenty of volunteers.



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Tomatillo lime jam or possibly soup

When I googled recipes for tomatillos I came up with alotta salsa. Yeah, there is only so much salsa I can eat and I have a lot of tomatillos. I mean A LOT OF TOMATILLOS. I’m not sure what made me taste a raw one but they reminded me of green apples so I thought there must be other things one can do with these. 

A more precise “tomatillo pie” search brought up not much but I ran across a jam recipe on the website of Pati Jinich a Mexican TV cook. It’s tomatillo-lime jam. It’s tastes delicious but it does not jell. She called for a cup of water and I used less than half that. It’s still runny. So after going through all the bother of processing them and seeing they were still like soup,  I unpacked them and reprocessed them with added pectin. Yeah, no. That did not work so I did it again with more pectin. Gah! Still didn’t jell. It’s a nice sauce, and the flavor is utterly not like anything you know. I wanted it to use with cheese and crackers. I’ll figure something out. I’ve gotta. The taste of this is worth it. And, I’ve got 40 billion tomatillos so that’s good. Still working on my concepts.




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The plague not listed in the Bible

Seriously?! These things are like tribbles. There’s no stopping them. Every time I turn around there are another 20 and that’s in the morning and again at night. And while I have billions of them from like 4 plants, there are really not a lot of things you can do with them. Salsa is good but you really can eat only so much of that. I really don’t know why you’d have a tomatillo plant at all unless you owned a Mexican restaurant…been there, done that.

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Putzing and pickling

So I have an overabundance of cucumbers and tomatillos. I also have dill, tabasco peppers and coriander (the seeds of cilantro) all of which I grew in my garden (the squirrels not withstanding). 

I love pickles. I had vinegar. And I have jars. It took not 5 minutes. Of course I have to wait for the results. But I can be patient. Sorta.





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Produce report: These damn things

Looks like I’m going to have a bumper crop of these things. And when I say bumper I mean BUMPER. The squirrels of course don’t eat tomatillos. And, in fact, neither do I really. There’s only so much salsa I can eat. I am heartened though by the idea that I might possibly be able to pickle these. Pickled tomatillos….Christmas gift idea! (And future blog material….bam!)