My salsa…

Makes all the pretty girls dance and want to take off their underpants….. My salsa.

Yep, I went there.

Ladies and gentlemen, I made, SALSA.

No, but seriously, last Sunday Funday we had a little too many margaritas at our “Avacado” party and got to eating a TON of my salsa I brought over. I decided to TRY to make both red and green kinds, they turned out well and I thought they’d be a nice addition to the part-ay.

Little did I know I did SUCH a good job on them, that Char used the green one in her Chicken Bites and her guy Jason actually kept half the jar! I keep forgetting to ask her if she liked the rest of it and what she did with it, but will be asking today, for sure!

Needless to say, it was a hit. We love having fresh salsa in the house and use it on everything. But this post is not about my love of the salsa. It’s about how this white girl makes some mean salsa.

Today, we’ll be making the green kind. Salsa Verde, to me is different than Chile Verde. Some disagree, some agree, whatever floats my boat in my kitchen, amiright? Yep. SO, the uncooked, chip friendly version we’re making in this post, would be, to me, salsa verde. The cooked, amended version would be chile verde, suitable for burritos and worthy of an addiction. I have mastered this too, and will show you later, grasshopper.

So, this is pretty easy, it’s just time consuming. It’s best to do this when you know your grocery store or local market is having a sale, sometimes, if you don’t know where to look, tomatillos can be a rip off. As can chiles of all sorts. We shop at Food City. They’re close, cheap, and grow locally. Sold.


Now, you might be asking yourself… “What the crap is a tomatillo?”
You may not have as potty-mouthed of an inner voice as I do, but, let’s pretend.

A tomatillo is NOT a green tomato. It’s not a un-ripe tomato, it’s not part of the tomato family. It is it’s own entity.

A delicious entity.

So head out to your local Mexican market and get your hands on some of these sticky bastards. You’ll be hooked… I am.
Especially when they’re 3lbs for $1… Right?!

INGREDIENTS:
This recipe makes over a gallon of salsa. It freezes well, thaws beautifully and lasts surprisingly long in the fridge, when kept in a mason jar.
3lbs tomatillos, cleaned and halved with stem scars removed
2 large white onions
1lb hatch chiles, halved
1 green bell pepper, halved
2 pasilla chiles, halved
3 jalapenos, halved
2 heads of garlic, peeled
1 bunch of green onion, diced
1 Bunch of cilantro, you can leave it whole, or chop it slightly, this all goes in a blender anyway
Juice from 3-4 limes, really depends on your love of tang. Get it?
1tbsp cumin, thyme, black pepper, salt, red pepper flakes (make a the largest tbsp of cumin down to the smallest tbsp of red pepper. I don’t even own measuring spoons, so I’m always guessing on the seasonings, and I use my hands to measure. Always season to taste!)
You will also need a blender or a food processor and a couple baking dishes. Tongs are helpful because the dishes are HOT when they come out of the oven. Obvi.

DIRECTIONS:
Roast all the veggies, except the green onion and cilantro, in the oven under the broiler, in glass baking dishes. These tomatillos have been roasted too long for salsa. You don’t want that much charred skin, you just want to soften everything and bring out the heat in the peppers. These were for chile verde, because I wasn’t sure the salsa was going to work when I made it, I didn’t take a lot of pictures. We’re still living off our freezer supply, so I’m making do with my own stock photography.

Repeat until all the veggies are roasted. I use a glass dish to keep the roasted mess in until it gets blended. Make sure you throw all the juices and seeds into the bowl too!

Now either in a food processor or a blender, blend everything REALLY well, adding some green onion and cilantro to every batch, to make sure it’s evenly chopped and distributed. I do it in small portions, to ensure it’s all mixed well. And then scoop it out and do it again. Before you blend everything for the second time, taste it, season it and remember the flavor will be stronger, spicier and better tomorrow and every day from then on. So don’t over season!

The salsa should sit in the fridge over night, if not 2 nights, to let the flavors become friends, don’t forget this part. Taste it again, after and make sure it tastes right to you, if not, re-season!

From there, I usually line some Tupperware bowls with plastic wrap and portion out 2 cups in each, freeze and when they’re solid, I take them out, wrap the plastic wrap the rest of the way around, wrap again in tin foil and label. They stack nicely in the freezer because I freeze everything in the same size Tupperware, every time. 2 cups is about half a mason jar, which lasts us 2 weeks or so.

I hope you try this, next freezer meal day, or any day! It’s WELL worth the effort. Mo eats salsa on his eggs, in his breakfast burritos and on anything else he can think of, some days!

Enjoy!