A nice alternative to tomato salsa is salsa verde which is made from tomatillo. We grew tomatillos in our backyard this summer and harvested enough to make five batches of salsa. The challenge is to find the right balance of acidity, saltiness and hotness.

I couldn’t believe how huge the tomatillo plants grew in our yard. They reached close to seven feet in height.

And they yielded lots of fruit.

The fruit are harvested once they burst their husk. Once the frost arrived I picked the rest. To prepare the tomatillo you need to free the fruit from the husk and wash them in mild dish detergent to remove the nasty tasting and sticky saponins.

Our crop had a lovely mixture of green and purple tomatillo. After a few tries, here is the recipe that seemed to produce a well balanced mild taste.

• 8 cups of quartered washed tomatillo
• 3 cups chopped sweet onion
• 1 jalapeno pepper
• 9 cloves of chopped garlic
• 1/2 cup of freshly chopped cilantro
• 1/4 cup of fresh lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons cumin
• 1 tablespoon sea salt
• 1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

Put all the ingredients into a large pot and bring to a boil. Simmer for 20 minutes at low heat. Let cool and store.

Pretty simple to do. You can adjust the heat, saltiness and acidity to your taste by adding more of jalapenos, salt or lemon juice. This recipe will give you a good basic mild salsa.

We had lots of tomatillos so I chopped them up, put them in freezer bags to preserve them for making more salsa. A high nummy score on this tasty treat.