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The garden is a bit of a mess at the moment. The tomatoes look straggly and horrible, but are still yielding a few last fruit. The peppers are coming to an end, and the tomatillo plants are sprawled every which way, with some of the fruit splitting. We harvested a big basket of tomatillos, so it was time to make a large batch of green salsa. Here’s the recipe:

Green Salsa

8 cups chopped tomatillos
3 large, pungent onions
olive oil
4 green bell peppers, chopped
4 jalapeno chiles, chopped (adjust according to taste)
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon of salt (adjust according to taste)
1 generous bunch of cilantro, chopped

Tomatillo Salsa

Saute the onions in the olive oil until soft. Add the peppers and chiles, and saute a little longer. Add tomatillos, garlic, and 3 cups of water. Simmer for about 15 minutes to cook the ingredients and reduce the mixture a little. Turn off the heat and add the cilantro. Blend the mixture until smooth, and add salt to taste. You can also add lime or lemon juice, according to taste, especially if your tomatillos are a bit over-ripe and not very tart. I added about 3 teaspoons of citric acid because the tomatillos were pretty ripe and our lemons and limes are not ready yet.

Having a sufficiently acid mixture is especially important if you want to can the salsa — which I did — so I used the citric acid quite liberally! I canned the salsa in small jars, using the overflow method. I’m sure that we will appreciate the summery taste of the green salsa in months to come.