'Ser Salsa Verde es Facil'

What happens when you plant four tomatillo plants in your backyard garden?

You realize by the end of the summer that you've done nothing with them and there is ripe fruit sprawling throughout that corner of the garden. Which can mean only one thing: another canning adventure on Mainstreet!   In a house without a complete kitchen, the plan was to a make a small batch of Salsa Verde for fajitas: simple, Make Dinner and Eat Salsa.  

The recipes I found were a bit more involved than just a small batch for dinner.  And besides I had the quantities of of ingredients for enough to can a whole batch, and then some.  As I began to compare the three recipes I found, one in Balls Blue Book of preserving, the other two were web sources I realized I liked bits of all three, so I took from all to come up with this one.  

Utilizing what I had available from my garden and Mom's pantry (apparently I didn't have white vinegar or cumin) and the store.  Lemon Juice and Lime Juice... I've yet to get any of my citrus trees to bear fruit (let alone live) in my Minnesota backyard. 

'Ser Salsa Verde es Facil'

Ingredients:

Chop & Cook:	8 cups of Tomatillo 2 cups of Onions 7 Ancho Hot Peppers 8 Cloves of Garlic 2 Jalapenos
Add:	½ cup of Vinegar (white) ½ cup of Lime Juice ½ cup of Lemon Juice 2 tsp Cumin ½ tsp Salt ¼ tsp Sugar

Directions:

Bring salsa to a boil then simmer for 20 min to an hour, or until Salsa reaches desired thickness. Fill salsa into sterilized half pint jars and hot water bath process for 20 mins.  

 

After over on hour of finely chopping vegetables, my brother who was keeping me company (not helping, just keeping company) said, 'Well I am going to bed, but it looks like you've got at least another 45 minutes left of chopping those tomatillos.'  At that point I decided I had enough chunks to the salsa and concluded that the rest could be blended.  After adding the halved tomatillos to the blender with the vinegar needed for the recipe, I myself was in bed within 5 minutes and the chopped veggies were in the fridge waiting to be cooked down the following night.

 

 Not knowing how it was all going to end up... and assuming it would be a better snacker salsa than a stand alone meal like my family's tomato based salsa, I decided to use tiny (4oz) jars.  They are cute and could be used as single serving salsa jars or as gifts.  I didn't thing a single quart jar would be a wise use of salsa or time, since it would have taken up most of the batch.

I am very satisfied with the end result of the salsa... thirteen 4 oz jars.  The home grown products may have slowed down the chopping, my onions were all smaller than ping pong balls.  I spun quite a few LPs during the process.  I could bump up the heat next time around... more Jalapenos or even Serrano peppers like one of the recipes suggested.  There is a strong citrus finish that I enjoy but may scale the lemon/lime back just a bit.  The white vinegar adds some acidity so there isn't such a need for citrus juice.

Mighty tasty, I found another great condiment to add to my morning egg routine. 

Salsa Verde Recipe at Food.com

Salsa Verde at Simply Recipes

When life gives you strawberries...

Its not nearly as discouraging or overwhelming as when life is dealing out lemons, but as I've always said...well not always, but I've been known to say... or at least I have said once: 'When life gives you strawberries, make Daiquiris!' That statement could have been followed by make Jam or Pie or even strawberry drizzle for Vanilla Ice Cream... but Daiquiris are more fitting with the beverage theme of lemons into lemonade.  Not to mention delicious.

Now through my short time as a consumer of this tasty iced beverage I've discovered you never know what caliber of daiquiri that you'll get at a bar or restaurant. If you need one that is hearty and refreshing home made is best. I've tried a few different strategies while making my own at home.  The actual fruit blended with the white rum, ice and daiquiri mix is a must, but after some important hands on research I come to the conclusion that frozen strawberries add much more complexity to the drink than fresh ones.  

When using frozen strawberries another key factor is to blend the ice cubes before adding the frozen strawberries.  If blended at the same time you lose any of the texture the berries have to offer. I like my daiquiris more like a meal than a drink... the fruit chunks are a necessity. There is nothing worse than getting a strawberry icee claiming to be a daiquiri only to be flavored with rum and red food coloring.

Home grown berries pack much more sweetness than store bought ones.  Knowing this and having the opportunity to pick strawberries in my mother's private berry patch, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my share of the harvest.  During berry season they need to be picked nearly every day, or the fruit will become overripe and spoil.  As the season progresses the berries get smaller and less attractive, as my luck has it my turn was at the tail end of the berry crop and things were getting a bit suspect.  Although there were slimmer pickings and less desirable fruit I was not dismayed; with daiquiris being my end game aesthetics were not a driving factor in berry choice.  Everything with enough red made it into the berry box.

Once they made it home they got a quick rinse, were allowed to dry of in a colander.  The cleaning and freezing was pretty straight forward.  I removed the stems and bruising and placed them in daiquiri ready pint-sized freezer safe bags. 

Did I mention I liked my daiquiris chunky?  No, the straw was used to get all the air our of the bag. 

Each bag measured our for a single batch of drinks and placed into the freezer to await a worthy libation.
I have the macrame lawn chairs and a blender... who's gonna join me?  I've got the berries, will you bring the rum?