Please don't eat the salsa!

Everything seemed great with the salsa I mixed up on Sunday. I must have ground up at least a couple of dozen tomatoes and blended them with cilantro, tomatillos, a pinch of jalapenos, onions, and salt. My sister requested "mild," which was no problem for me. I figured if Bill wanted to barbecue his tongue he could throw in some of those peppers he loads down on all his German sausage and hamburger sandwiches.

Now, the tomatillo ingredient was a new one on me. I've been living near the wrong border to know any different. I looked over recipes before going to the store to get ingredients. I kept seeing tomatillos listed but figured they were just iddy biddy tomatoes, and I had a few small ones in my wheelbarrow load of garden pickings.

At Yoke's produce center, I summoned Mr. Alamillo to help me with pepper selection, noting that the salsa must be mild. He said jalapenos were okay---just don't load down the salsa with them and don't throw in the seed. Then, he told me what his mother did with her tomatillos---she warms 'em up on the griddle, then skins them. There's that word again, I thought.

"What ARE tomatillos?" I asked. Mr. Alamillo directed me to another vegetable display and pulled out a handful of husks with little green tomatoes inside. I'd never seen those things before, even though I've probably eaten them many times in other salsas. He told me to use about two per quart, so I loaded up on the first tomatillos of my cooking career.

I also bought a small grinder. Last time I made salsa, I made two nearly fatal mistakes. Each morsal in that salsa concoction was cut individually by bare hand with a knife. It was an arduous, messy process. That's the reason I haven't made salsa for several years. I had no idea jalapeno peppers could be so vicious. I didn't learn that until I'd rubbed my eyes a couple of times, long after trying to wash away every trace of jalapeno which kept insidiously attacking my fingers like acid.

Seems like that jalapeno demon, mixed with onion odor, hung around for a couple of days tormenting me for my salsa-making stupidity.

This time, I bought kitchen gloves and that grinder. Once we figured out how to get the grinder to work, I threw everything in, including those tomatillos. It was still a messy job, like the last, but I'd learned my lesson and came out with three quarts of salsa, safe fingers and no burning eyes. What didn't fit in the jars went into a dish. We pigged out on salsa Sunday, and we pigged out some more last night. Bill hasn't even added any of his peppers.

I've discovered just one problem, which I must tell my sister who was given one of those quarts, canned Sunday. I discovered this morning that the salsa is expanding inside the quart jars and seeping out onto the counter.

"Oh-oh, what's this?" I said, while Bill looked on. The lone quart on the counter was surrounded by a small lake with a distinct salsa odor. "Guess I'd better notify Laurie."

Then, I remembered that Laurie's quart of salsa was still sitting on Mother's counter yesterday. Now, Mother's been having stove problems, so she's got enough on her plate without salsa exploding out of a quart jar that can no longer hold its contents. So, I've got to get over there, retrieve that jar before it blows up or kills someone from botulism.

More importantly, though, before making any more salsa and dumping it into jars (yes, I sterilize them and the lids), I've got to figure out why it's doing this. So, I know the food experts are out there. And, by the way, today is food day in the newspaper, and they've got a nice little article on tomatillos.

So, experts, tell me what I'm doing wrong cuz I've still got three quarters of a wheel barrow full of ripening tomatoes. And, that salsa tastes pretty good. All salsa wisdom is welcome.