Thing Seventeen: Roasted Salsa Verde

[badseed1980]

Dude, I actually used a RECIPE.

Every once in a while, I get a bee in my bonnet for some complete whim when it comes to cooking. The most recent one was for salsa verde. Do I eat salsa verde on a regular basis? No. Did I have a particular craving to eat it? Not really, though I always like a good salsa. Did I have all the requisite ingredients just laying around the house and needing to be used up? Nope. So...what gives?


Well, this time, I blame the farmers' market. I saw some beautiful tomatillos there a couple of weeks ago, and thought, "oooh, those are just gorgeous! I would love to get some of those and make use of them, but I don't really know what I'd do with them. I shouldn't buy something I've never cooked with before and just hope that I can come up with something I want to make--and the time to make it--before they go bad."


So, that day, I left the tomatillos where they were. The very next day, I was reading one of the (many) food blogs that I follow, and saw a recipe for roasted salsa verde. Suddenly, I wished I'd bought those tomatillos after all! Needless to day, I snagged some the following week (this past Monday). I also picked up some poblanos and some cilantro. I had onions and garlic that I'd already bought, and my garden furnished me with some lovely jalapeños. Last night, after a sadly mediocre restaurant dinner, I came home and started roasting up all the veggies. The smell of all that stuff in the hot oven was absolutely divine. Alas, though, the garlic overcooked! I should have known it would--it's so much smaller than the other items. I should have delayed putting it in with the rest of the stuff. Ah well. Since the oven was still so hot, I just chucked a few more cloves into it, and by the time I'd skinned and seeded the peppers and put everything into the food processor bowl, they were soft. A few pulses of the processor later, and I turned out a gorgeous bowl of fragrant, tangy salsa.


I'm going to freeze most of this stuff, and keep a smallish container in the fridge to nosh on. It's not too spicy, but it has some zip. I could probably use it as a sauce to simmer chicken or pork. It'll also be great with the baked blue corn chips I got at Trader Joe's recently. This is the first time I've made a real salsa, as opposed to a pico de gallo. I really hope to get a chance to share it with my dad. He makes an excellent red salsa, and I think he'd like this one as well! My dad has told me that I am the only person to whom he will entrust his salsa recipe. The least I owe him is a jar of this stuff in return! That makes me think that I really should get into canning at some point. It makes sharing things like this so much easier. One of these days, I will! For this batch, though, I knew I wouldn't be worrying about that, so I reduced the vinegar in the recipe as recommended for the non-canned version. It's plenty tangy.

Hmm...this makes me think that my next 100 Things post should be about Things I Want To Can.

Comments

[mrw42.livejournal.com]

If you want to learn to do water bath canning, I'd be happy to show you how, sometime when I'm doing another round of canning. My next couple of rounds (after today's peaches) will probably be for apple sauce in mid-September.

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I've also had offers from lindalee and others. :) I really just need to get all the equipment necessary.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

Unless we get a pressure cooker, we'd have to stick to high acid products in canning.

Which means I REALLY should dump all my starter wort for brewing, just to be on the safe side.

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

Following recipes designed for canning would be fine. This recipe I used says that it's good for canning as long as you use bottled lime juice and the full amount of cider vinegar.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

Exactly - it turns out wort doesn't have a low enough pH, so, when next we brew, we should have bought a pressure cooker already, and we can make some starter wort, also.

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...I think we might need to do some reorganizing to find a place to put a pressure cooker! :) Unless it lives out on the porch or in the basement.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

It can live with the brewpots.