Green Tomato Salsa

With the exceptionally dry summer and rainy fall, our garden was a little confused this year. We managed to keep it alive through the drought, but not much grew. Once the rain started (and didn't stop), our garden took off. Coupled by some early frosts, we had to pull everything in early and ended up with a plethora of green tomatoes. Our grape tomatoes were actually full size, just not ripe. Our other tomato plant had not matured to full size yet, so we had tiny little green tomatoes. Not even worth trying to make fried green tomatoes with. So, we scoured the internet for recipes so that we could use at least most of our green tomatoes. We ended up making this tasty salsa from moderncomfortfood.com. In true Amateur Foodies fashion, however, we changed the recipe a little bit.

Here's what you need:
2 lbs green tomatoes
2 shallots, quartered
3 jalapenos
1 Anaheim pepper (Poblano would work nice as well)
3 cloves of garlic
1 tsp Kosher salt
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1 Tbsp olive oil
3 Tbsp water
1/2 tsp lemon zest (about half a lemon)
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp honey
1/3 cup cilantro

Here's what you do:
Start by slicing up your tomatoes. We used mostly grape tomatoes, so this took us some time to cut everything in half. If you have large heirlooms, just quarter them and leave it at that.

Next, peel and quarter your shallots. Add that to the pot with the tomatoes.

Slice up your jalapenos. Remove the seeds and ribs. If you want to kick up the heat in this salsa, try using fresh cayenne peppers instead of jalapenos.

Treat your Anaheim (or Poblano) the same as the jalapeno and add it to the pot.

Next comes garlic. Peel and do a rough chop on this as well.

Finally, add the salt, cumin, olive oil and water to the pot and place on the stove top over medium-high heat.

Let the water come to a simmer (you'll hear it more than see it), and then reduce the heat to medium-low and cover for about 30 minutes. Stir occasionally.

You may have to let the mixture cook for a longer period of time, or they may be ready before the 30 minutes are up. It really just depends on how close to ripe your tomatoes are. When you get to this point, you're ready to move forward.

Add the zest, lemon juice, honey and cilantro and continue cooking for another 5-10 minutes.

Spoon in to a blender. We had to do this in two batches. Blend until mostly smooth. We liked having some small chunks in ours, but if you want to puree the heck out of it, be our guest.

Keep in mind that this mixture is going to be hot. To be safe, put a kitchen towel over the top of the blender and hold the lid down to prevent it from exploding all over your kitchen.

Taste and adjust seasoning to your liking. 

Enjoy!