Monday, October 24, 2011

What Should I Do With My Tomatillo?

We received some tomatillo fruits in our mini-CSA on Friday. I didn't realize what they were at first because I don't think I've ever grown or bought them. Crazy, eh? I love the outer paper-like shell and the slight stickiness to the fruit inside. I immediately thought of salsa, but there has to be something more creative to make with these...any suggestions?
We have a monthly buying club where we buy in bulk directly from UNFI. We've belonged to buying clubs off and on for years and it really cuts down on our food budget and allows us to eat mostly organic foods. It also makes shopping easier because we can concentrate on produce. I rarely run out of nuts because I have a steady supply in the freezer and we have space to store 25lb bags of dried beans and flours.  The only drawback is when I'm counting on something to come in and it is out of stock. I don't know until the delivery day what is actually coming so it can be pretty disappointing. This time it was nut butter. I had promised Josie I would make what the kids lovingly call Glorious Pad Thai.

I'm sure you've all seen this video and the kids love it. I don't follow the Black Metal Chef's recipe, but I find it fun and I started making my Pad Thai all in one pot like he does when I'm in a hurry. Homemade Pad Thai will forever be "Glorious Pad Thai" to my kids. No peanuts and no nut butter made me skip the Pad Thai. I could have made my own almond butter with the raw almonds and the Vitamix, but I didn't. I use brown rice noodles (from the buying club, I haven't found them locally yet) so it makes me feel a little better about making pad thai and I can't really tell a difference in taste or texture.
Instead I used the quinoa pasta I ordered (it came in 8oz. boxes so I had to supplement with whole wheat) and improvised a tomato sauce (tomatoes from our CSA and a can of fire roasted tomatoes, green peppers from the CSA, a hot pepper from the CSA, some cashews, some chickpeas, a load of garlic, miso, and kalamata olives topped with fresh ground pepper, a bit of nooch, and walnuts). The quinoa pasta was fine, but the nutrition content didn't seem to be much different from my whole wheat pasta and we obviously aren't gluten free, but it makes a nice addition/change to regular pasta. No complaints and great Monday night meal.

2 comments:

Carrie said...

My first choice for tomatillos would definitely be salsa verde! But your question made me curious about what else to do with tomatillos so I did a quick search and found this site, with lots of neat ideas and info, hope it's helpful! http://www.foodbanter.com/mexican-cooking/14097-10-things-do-tomatillos.html

Sarah E. Hoffman said...

I love that cooking show! He's pretty awesome!