Green Tomato Salsa

Look, my first recipe to share! This year I grew a little container garden for the first time. Everything was planted in kiddie pools and I grew 4 kinds of lettuce, zucchini, peas, a couple herbs, and 4 kinds of tomatoes. Oh, those tomatoes! Everything did well except for them. It wasn't until after I planted all 8 plants that I learned tomatoes don't do well here because it's too cold. In spite of having a particularly chilly and wet summer, I did get about 15 delicious ripe tomatoes but that left me with a few bajillion green ones.

After making fried green tomatoes (good but only used up 2 of them) and rotini with green tomatoes and feta (very good tasty!), I was able to use up a few more of them in the Mexina Salsa Verde recipe from Allrecipes.com. The recipe needed a good amount of tweaking but we're happy with how it turned out. Definitely different than both regular salsa and salsa verde made with tomatillos, but still tasty and a great use for those millions of unripe 'maters! My version of the recipe makes a lot so we gave some away, ate some with chips, put some on taco pizza, and put the rest in the freezer for later. I'll probably make the rest of the tomatoes into green salsa too.

A few things to note: First of all, this recipe uses one of my favorite convenience products. Frozen diced onions! I hate chopping onions because the eyes on fire sensation really detracts from my enjoyment of cooking, so I buy the frozen ones most of the time. This salsa recipe uses an entire 12 oz bag. Also, you can either dice the tomatoes if you want chunky salsa or just chop them roughly if you want to put the salsa in the blender and get a smooth sauce (which is what I did this time around). You could also put the onions in after cooking the tomatoes if you want a stronger flavor. I guess you could try not cooking the green tomatoes at all but if you take a bite of a raw one, it makes your mouth feel really weird and dry which isn't something I want when I'm trying to enjoy salsa. Lastly, you could use lime juice instead of vinegar and I'm sure it would be delicious. My husband doesn't like too much citrus flavor in foods that aren't dessert so I only put in a little since I need him to help me eat the truckload of salsa I made.


Green Tomato Salsa

about 2 1/2 lbs green tomatoes, diced or chopped roughly
12 oz frozen diced onions (about 2 diced fresh onions)
1 C water
3 cloves minced garlic
2 T minced jarred jalapeno
1/2 bunch cilantro, stems removed
3 T lime juice
2 T white vinegar
2 t salt

Cook tomatoes, onions and water in a covered pot about 10 minutes or until tender. Let cool. Stir in remaining ingredients and pulse in blender until smooth or else leave chunky.

Yield: About 7 cups