Worth The Tears

After tearing down the garden delicates on Friday, our kitchen was overflowing with produce that had to be dealt with this weekend.  Yesterday was salsa day, and oh my the house smelled like roasted goodness.  Our tomatillo salsa has very few ingredients and with the exception of olive oil, salt and pepper, everything we produced.  We did a combination of ancho chilies and some little spicy red peppers that have quite a kick.  As I finished slicing tomatillos, B seeded and chopped the red peppers.  I could feel the capsaicin hit my nostrils and my throat catch; we both began to intermittently cough.  Then came peeling onions, because our onions were relatively small, yet abundant, we peeled and quartered lots and lots of them.  Both of the kids had friends over and B and I were coughing and crying, it was quite a sight!  What we ended up with for our trouble was 10 quarts of amazing tomatillo salsa.   Well worth the tears!!

Tomatillo Salsa 

A big bunch of tomatillos (we had 20 lbs)
Lots of Onions, Garlic, and Chilies (to your taste)

We did 4 rimmed cookie sheets full of halved tomatillos, One cookie sheet full of quartered onions and 2 heads of crushed garlic, and one cookie sheet full of ancho chilies with a handful of spicier chilies added to the mix.  Everything was tossed in olive oil, and sprinkled with salt and pepper, then roasted at 400 degrees until soft and browning on top (about an hour).  We through everything in to a large bowl and pulverized with an immersion blender.  Placed in hot jars with a two part lid and canned in a water bath caner.  

A Serenade of Pops

Pop..... pOp..... PoP..... poP....

Such a gratifying sound to listen to.  It is the sound of a jar successfully sealing down after it's come out of the boiling processing water.  The eighteen jars that we just canned are serenading me as they seal.  It seems that most of this years canning is on a theme...green.  With the weather turning so cool and the garden a couple weeks behind because of the cool start, we have only been able to can two quarts of roasted tomatoes and now we are focusing on condiments.  Yesterday we had some friends over and canned most of our harvested tomatillos into salsa, a rich beautiful green color.  We decided to use the remaining tomatillos to make tomatillo jam, which turned out to be a pale golden green color.  With a continued lack of warm days in the forecast we will turn our attention soon to a mass processing of green tomatoes into relish. We are continuing our preservation of a bumper crop of green beans, and will try to preserve green ancho chillies.  Ripe or no, regardless of your season, there is a wonderful way to utilize your bounty.  What unique ways do you use your garden/farmers market rewards ?

Tomatillo Jam

12 C Tomatillos

2 C Lemon juice

5 C Sugar

2 Packets unflavored gelatin

Zest of 2 lemons

Process your tomatillos in a food processor until they reach a fine texture.  Place the processed tomatillos in a large soup pot with the lemon juice and 1/2 of the sugar and bring to strong rolling boil.  Once boiling slowly add remaining sugar and cook down for about 15 minutes, while stirring regularly.  Bloom the gelatin to the package instructions, add to jam mixture and stir vigorously for 5 minutes.  Stir in lemon zest to combine, remove from heat, and put into hot sanitized jelly jars. Place on two part seal and process submerged in boiling water bath for 15 minutes.  Remove to counter to cool and listen to the serenade of pops!