Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

No Garden Tomatillos for Tomatillo Salsa? Me Neither.

Hey, y'all! This is Kate from Our Best Bites and my blogging partner Sara and I are thrilled to be guest posting today because it means Maria and Josh are busy with their new little pea.

Every year, I have always been incredibly jealous of all my friends who tell me all about harvesting their gardens and canning all their fresh produce and eating fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchinis, and peppers. So this year, I decided I would grow a garden and that I would weed and water it faithfully and in the fall, I would can lots of stuff. My garden has been dead since June. What's worse is that I'm not even really all that sad about it.

I have decided that there are gardeners and there are people who will eat the food from other people's gardens. I definitely fall into the latter category. I'll shop local, buy from roadside stands, and hit up the farmer's markets, but I have a hopelessly black thumb and an ambivalence for keeping plants alive, both of which don't help when it comes to gardens. (Side note: This is Kate, not Sara–in addition to being a fancy-pants blogger, Sara is also a horticulturist, so she's way better at not killing her garden than I am).

Anyway.

Before this hot, rainless summer hit the Southeast United States and my poor garden shriveled up, I planted tomatillos with the sole intention of making this salsa. Lucky for me, the Garden Murderer, tomatillos are in season, widely available, and inexpensive right now.

Picking out Tomatillos

If you've never worked with tomatillos before, they are tangy little lime-green buggers that have a papery skin that are usually found near the ethnic produce like ginger, jalapeno peppers, and fancy mushrooms.

Because tomatillos are often completely covered by the papery skin, it can be hard to determine whether they're good or not. If they aren't shrunken into the skin and there are no soft spots, sticky fluid, or obvious grossness, they should be fine. However, I definitely recommend buying about ¼ pound more than you need just in case you run into trouble (as much trouble as you can run into when you're working with tomatillos, that is) and to account for that skin.

How to Make Tomatillo Salsa

1. Preheat oven to 500 degrees.
2. For a milder salsa, seed jalapenos; otherwise, cut jalapenos in half
3. Cut tomatillos in half, quarter onions, and smash garlic (you can leave the skins on or peel them–it's up to you).
4. Spread vegetables on a large foil-lined baking sheet, spritz with extra virgin olive oil
5. Bake in oven for 15-20 minutes or until vegetables are tender/ beginning to char.
6. When veggies are cool, transfer them to your blender or food processor jar
7. Add fresh lime juice, salt, and pepper and pulse it until it's as smooth (or not) as you want
8. After blended, transfer salsa to serving dish, and stir in chopped cilantro and chopped green onions.