PLUM TOMATILLO SALSA

I never get angry at vegetables, but tomatillos are a pain in the butt. They just sit in the fridge staring at me with their little crinkly skins, saying, "What about me? Why can't you ever think of anything clever to do with me?" And I can't. I can only think of salsa, and on the web thats pretty much what everyone else is packing. So I tried to at least make the salsa interesting and I added local plums, a yellow tomato, red onion, amish garlic, honey, cilantro, lemon juice, olive oil, some hot pepper that was about to die, salt and pepper and of course those annoying tomatillos. This salsa was good. Really good.

PICADILLO FEIGN

Only family gets away with calling you and saying, "Hi Jen, can you cook dinner for me?" Only family can get away with using you so blatantly. But what can I say, use me and abuse me when it comes to cooking. I can never say no. So of course, my brother Mike calls and he only ever wants one thing from me, picadillo.

I learned how to make picadillo from Ginger Lopez, who is an amazing cook. This cuban dish is basically a stew of seasoned chopped meat with lots of olives served over white rice and topped with french fries. Hard to go wrong.

Mike's eyes have always dwarfed his stomach so when we went food shopping he forced me to get 3 lbs of meat. So excessive for 3 people. But my brother Mike is more stubborn then me, so we literally made a gigantic vat of picadillo with enough leftovers for everyone to enjoy for a few days.

Here's the recipe for picadillo from a previous post.

As a side I made corn and tomatillo salsa with red onion, tomato, garlic, cilantro, hot pepper, lemon juice, cayenne, and green peppers.

And we watched the funniest videos I have ever seen, Gino the Ginny. You will die of laughter watching this crazy kid.

ROASTED TOMATILLO SALSA

     I got all these tomatillos, roasted them with some garlic and other hot cubanillo pepper and some green and red bell pepper and made this roasted salsa with some fresh basil, a little sugar to balance the spice and some lemon juice. I didn't have any delivery system for it like chips, but this would have made a great garnish for some grilled fish.