Green Tomatoes and Salsa Verde

What do you do when you get a whole lot of green tomatoes at the same time?  Now that is a good question.  I have made green tomato jam before, well, actually a couple times because frankly it is just that good. But how much jam can you have?

I have made fried green tomatoes before, at least once per summer.

But now I have a new favorite with about six containers in my freezer to prove it.  Salsa verde.  Now, before you go getting your panties in a ruffle, I know salsa verde is traditionally made with tomatillos.  And yes, I make that and I love it.  But why not green tomatoes?  They are green and I turned them into sauce- thus salsa verde.

Then I used them for this great idea for zucchini and mushrooms  enchiladas.  An idea that came from here. A good idea in fact- they were quite tasty.  If you want to follow the recipe, hop on over to Closet Cooking.

I collected some ingredients that I would normally throw into tomatillo type salsa verde. But I added a few more things.

Salsa Verde, Green Tomato style
This recipe will make enough salsa that you can freeze about 3 cups of it and have some for this dish as well.  If you do not want so much, halve it or quarter it.


8 cups quartered green toamtoes
4 cloves garlic
1 large onion, chopped roughly
1 yellow bell pepper (this will help with the color)
1 jalapeno, more or less depending on your heat preference
3/4 teaspoon epazote (if you dont have this just omit)*
3/4 teaspoon celery seed
1 teaspoon cumin seeds**
1 tablespoon oil

In a dutch oven or a heavy bottomed pot, saute onion until translucent.  Add cumin seeds and toast lightly.  Then add all the rest of the ingredients.  How easy is that.  Cover the pot and let it all cook for about an hour.  You want your green tomatoes to be tender.  Puree once it is all cooked.  Use salsa in recipes that call for salsa verde.


*  epazote is an herb used in Mexican cooking.  It is actually stink weed dried up.  It is pretty powerful stuff so you just want to use a little.  It really lends a lot of flavor and makes things taste mroe authentic.

**  cumin seeds are worth any time it takes you to find them. They are nice and fresh and give lots of flavor.  If you want them ground, just grind them in a spice grinder and voila, ground cumin with lots of POW.

Turkey Enchilada with Salsa Verde

Love, love tomatillos.  I had some frozen, all made up into salsa verde from this past summer.  I was wanting to make some turkey enchiladas.  Oh yum.  Yah know, you really dont even need a recipe for something like this, a few key components and you can mix in whatever you like. I am putting it on my blog because I particularly liked the taste of these.

One thing you will notice is that I used some pork fat.  Generally I never cooked with it but the price of oil has gone up so much that I decided to freeze pork grease the last time I made pulled pork.  It has a lot of flavor.  Certainly though you could use any kind of oil you like.  

Turkey Enchiladas with Salsa Verde

2 pounds ground turkey
1 onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper chopped
1 clove garlic
1/4 cup sour cream
2 ounces cream cheese
1 cup mozzarella
1 packet taco seasoning or two tablespoons of your own taco seasoning.
1 tablespoon pork fat
 6-8 flour tortillas

In a frying pan saute onion and pepper in a 1/2 of a tablespoon of  pork fat, until transluscent.  Remove from pan and set aside.  In the same pan fry the turkey in the remaining pork fat until just cooked.  Add in taco seasoning.  Place turkey with vegetables.  Stir in cream cheese and stir until melted.  Add sour cream and mozzarella.  In a 6 x 10 spoon half of tomatill sauce.  Spoon filling into tortillas and place, seam side down, into casserole dish.After rolling all the tortillas, spoon remainder fo tomatill sauce over top.

I covered and baked it but they were a tad soggy, next time I think I would leave it uncovered.  I guess it all depends on how 'soupy' your salsa verde sauce is.

Bake at 350 for 45 minutes to an hour.

Green Salsa Verde, Chicken and Rice

This picture does not do this dish justice.  It was very tasty and very easy.  Since I already have green salsa made from my bumper crop of green tomatoes at the end of last summer, I thought this recipe idea was perfect.  The idea is from Kat of A Good Appetite.  Yes, I know green salsa is made from tomatillos.  I make it, I know.  But I used my poetic cooking license and made it with green tomatoes.  I just love when I can pull something from my freezer in the winter that was from my garden or the market in the summer.  Wholesome and good.  And easy to boot.  All that prep work all ready done! Layer it all in and voila!

Green Salsa Verde, Chicken and Rice

4 cups of cooked rice
1 jar pf green salsa- about 16 ounces. 
2 cups cooked chicken shredded or chopped ( I used chicken thigh meat)
2 cups mozzarella or pepper jack, shreddedd

Smooth out rice in a lightly sprayed 9 x 13 casserole dish.  Spoon green salsa over top, evenly distributing.  Sprinkle chicken over that and then the cheese.  Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 350 for about 45 minutes.

I made this a second time without the chicken and it was equally delicious.

Chili Verde

You know last year at the end of the growing season I was over run by green tomatoes- from my garden and I had a few from my CSA.  With all those green tomatoes I had made some green enchilada sauce.  No tomatillos, just green tomatoes.  I did it, thinking, what the heck am I going to use this for?  How many times do I make enchiladas? But I also felt like, how many green tomatoes can I make or green tomato jelly can I use.  You know what?  I have used that green chili sauce in a casserole, with enchiladas and now with chili.  This and the casserole are my absolute favorites.  I never dreamed I would like green chili as much as I had this.  And yes, there is a scant 1/2 cup there because it disappeared before I had a chance to take any good pics.

It's a MUST MAKE again!

 

Chili Verde

1 green bell pepper, chopped (about 1 cup)
1 large onion
1 tablespoon oil
1 1/2 pounds hamburger
2 cups salsa verde (use my recipe here or use a store bought or make some tomatillo salsa)
1 clove garlic
1 can kidney beans -1/2 cup whole and mash the rest
2 tablespoons taco seasoning
2 tablespoons ketchup
1/2 cup mutha sauce or barbecue sauce of your choice.  Mutha sauce will be posted next on this blog

Saute onions and peppers in oil. until transluscent.  Add ground beef.  Saute until the hamburger browns a little.  Add in garlic, cook one minute more.  Add the salsa, kidney beans (both whole and mashed), ketchup, mutha sauce and taco seasoning.  Cover and cook for about 40 minutes.

Serve with all the chili fixings you desire. We had it with cornbread. Delicious!

Dips and Eggs

An unsuspecting observer would never know what lurks under the lid of this grill (this very, dirty grill). My husband went to show our neighbor how our grill recently broke from a wind storm and was a bit surprised to find a whole tray of twigs and two little robins eggs in the center. How sweet is that? We will not be using our gas grill for a while.

*UPDATE May 6th: There are three more eggs in there. My daughter had opened up the grill. Thankfully the little eggs were unharmed. I looked in there, since it was open and I saw 5 eggs. Interesting... Cant wait to see what happens...










Have you ever had champagne mango salsa? Champagne mangoes are small but don't let their size fool you. They have quite a bit of meat on them and a little pit. They are smooth and silkier than regular mangoes, at least I think so. I chopped them up and added a jalapeno, red onion, lemon juice and salt. Yum.
When my husband and I were first married I had planted some tomatillos in the garden. I grew them up from seed. Tempered them to the outdoors and planted my precious little babies in my new garden. I was so excited because back then it wasn't very often you would find tomatillos. To have my own fresh ones was really exciting. My husband, decided to weed the garden one day. I know, you already know what I am going to say, dont you? Yeah, he thought they were weeds and plucked their precious little limbs right out of the garden. Oh, I was so upset and disappointed. Honestly though, our growing season might be too short for these or I needed to learn a little more because what I did have left didn't yield very much or very big fruit either. They were about the size of a quarter.


I usually boil the tomatillos to prepare the salsa but this time I roasted them. I didn't really see a big taste difference.

Salsa Verde

1 1/2 pound tomatillos, skins removed
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup cilantro
salt to taste
juice of a lime
jalapeno to taste
red onion, minced

Boil tomatillos in water until tender. Mince red onion, set aside. In a processor or blender, process garlic and cilantro. Add tomatillos and salt and lime. Process until quite pureed. Remove and place in bowl with red onion.

Oven Baked Zucchini Chips

I am totally burnt out from summer.  Run, run, run! And then of course because it is harvest time- lots of freezing and canning.  I am not complaining, mind you. I just feel like holing up in my house for a couple weeks.  

Today, I made a pork shoulder for the next few days eating, short ribs for tonight, froze peaches, zucchini dill soup, salsa verde, beets.... um, what else?  Oh, I made some zucchini bars that I will show you on another day. I also cut up a bunch of veggies for a veggie tray to take to a party, mowed my parents lawn and shopped for fabric.  I love productive days like these.  However, I am looking forward to some much needed R and R.

I made these a week or so ago.  I don't mind baking things like this.  Most people prefer frying it. This is less calories and less messy.

Baked Zucchini Chips

2 zucchinis (medium size)
2 cups panko
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk

Preheat oven to 425F.  Line a few cookie sheets with parchment or a silpat.

Beat egg and milk together in a bowl.  In another bowl place panko mixed with garlic powder.  Slice zucchini 1/4 inch thick. Dip slices of zucchini in egg mixture and then into panko mixture, then place on parchment lined cookie sheet.

Bake until golden, alternating racks.

When you take them our of the oven sprinkle with salt or whatever seasonings you like.

Ranch Dip

1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons Worcestershire Sauce
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon dried dill weed (use fresh if you have it)

Mix together, cover and let sit in the refrigerator overnight