Salsa Verde!

The cold of winter finally came in this week. Up until now we have enjoyed a relatively mild November and early December which extended our season.

We still have crops in the garden left over from fall such as carrots, celery, spinach, onions, cilantro, parsley and some other herbs. They were great to pick for Thanksgiving dinner and especially turkey soup. They are now covered with cold frame tops along with new raised beds of lettuce and spinach.

tomatillos and red onion for chopping

One of the last good harvests of summer crops happened in early November with our plants of Tomatillo and Cape Cod Gooseberry. We found the seeds online back in April and our neighbor, Fred, was nice enough to start them for us in his greenhouse in his Sperry Wood Farm. We also had quite a few gooseberries sprout up around the garden from last year’s plant drops.

tomatillos and gooseberries are ready to pick when the husk is a loose papery skin

The larger Tomatillo and smaller gooseberry are key ingredients in our Salsa Verde made with onions and peppers from the garden. The peppers add some heat, the gooseberries add some sweet and the tomatillos some tang.

Our base recipe (based on the old Ball Blue Book) - improvising encouraged:
· 6 cups chopped, cored tomatillo and gooseberries – 2 lbs.
· 1 cup chopped onion
· 1 cup chopped peppers – chili, Hungarian wax, jalapeño, etc.
· 4 cloves garlic
· 2 tbls. Cilantro
· 2 tsps. Cumin
· ½ tsp. salt
· ½ tsp red pepper
· ½ cup vinegar
· ¼ cup lime juice

Serve with crackers, cheese, a cold beer and a football game and chill out and hunker down.