Friends, we have recently moved to a new home in the city and my heart couldn’t be happier. It’s not the country like our hearts anticipated, but it’s a lovely home with a large kitchen (YAY!) and plenty of land to continue in urban homesteading.
I feel like I spent the past few years in limbo. Our hearts desire was to build a home in the country to start our homesteading journey; however, the Lord made it clear that it wasn’t His timing. For Gabe and I, it was very important that our decision to build a home reflected our desire to continue in our chosen lifestyle. A simpler life in which I could continue to stay at home and homeschool our children. In order to live within our means and continue in this season of homeschooling, we decided to postpone our plans.
We still own 10 acres in the country and plan on improving the land, slowly, year by year, to prepare for our future homestead (think permaculture). However, until then, we’re very happy where God has us.
Since our plans were still to move to a bigger home regardless if we built or not, I kept my garden small this past year. Before moving out a few weeks ago, I spent some time in fall cleanup. I pulled plants, worked the soil, amended a bit, and you better believe that I made sure to harvest all of my green tomatoes to make a large batch of salsa verde.
Generally, salsa verde is made using tomatillos – a small, husked, Mexican tomato. They’re tart and a bit bitter. In growing my own tomatoes, I’ve realized that when tomatoes are green and firm they have a similar tartness to the tomatillo. So each fall, I harvest my green tomatoes and use them to make a large batch of salsa verde for recipes like enchiladas, fajitas, slow cooked chicken, and braised ox-tail (recipe coming soon!).
There’s a lot of depth and richness in this salsa and it can be used in many different kinds of recipes. Most recently I’ve been using it to drizzle on top of power bowls. I think I need to write a power bowl post as they’ve been getting a lot of attention on Instagram.
A rich and bold salsa verde made from green tomatoes.
Ingredients:
- About 16 unripe, green tomatoes
- 8 cloves of garlic, skins blackened
- 1-2 jalapeño peppers, skins blackened
- 2 packed cups, cilantro leaves with stems
- 4 cups chicken broth
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
Method:
- To make the salsa verde with rich and bold flavors, turn your oven on to a high broil, and broil for 8-10 minutes or until their skins have charred and cracked. Using tongs, flip the tomatoes and broil on the other side.
- While the tomatoes are broiling, over medium heat, in a heavy-bottomed skillet or cast iron pan, char the jalapeño and garlic with its skin on until they begin to blacken and the garlic softens. Remove from heat, and allow to cool.
- Once cooled, remove the skins from the softened garlic.
- Once the tomatoes are blackened on all sides, working in batches, in a mixer blend the tomatoes, garlic, jalapeño, and cilantro to a puree.
- In a large pot, over high heat, add the puree, chicken broth, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer for 30-35 minutes or until the sauce thickens.
Notes
This recipe is for a large batch of salsa verde from tomatoes. Halve it for a smaller batch. Feel free to substitute tomatillos for the tomatoes.
I used one of the pans of green tomatoes above for this recipe. The rest, I broiled, sealed, and froze to make another large batch in the winter.
Now that we’re in our new (to us) home, I am very happy to finally be at a place to grow new roots. I’m eager to create and begin to share with you many new recipes, tutorials, and urban homesteading posts.
I never thought of using regular tomatoes that are still green. I’ve found tomatillos recently at the supermarket. I will be saving some of the seeds for my garden next year. I’ve grown them before and they are quite easy to propagate from saved seeds. They looks like weeds as they grow, but oh, the flavor! And they are prolific. Thanks for the idea. Thanksgiving blessings to you and yours,
Charlotte
I’ll be trying this recipe very soon. My son recently moved home from Mexico, where he’s been for the last couple of years. The things he is missing the most? the foods. Definitely. He found a jar of Salsa Verde in the local grocery store and is happy with it, but I’ve decided to try to make it on my own. We have a huge garden and we can and store tons of veggies, might as well add a new recipe, right? Wish me luck~
Good luck, Donna!