Roasted Tomatillo Salsa with Avocado

A few weeks ago, I ran across a recipe from A Spicy Perspective for creamy roasted tomatillo salsa and bookmarked it because it looked so delicious.  The very next day at the community market I found some beautiful tomatillos at one of our favorite booths.  I knew we were having Beef and Bean Taquitos for supper that week, so I thought I'd give the creamy roasted tomatillo salsa a try to go with it.

The afternoon we were to have the taquitos, I looked up the recipe for the salsa again and realized it was to make 4 quarts of the stuff.  I'm not good at math.  I'm not good at judging quantities.  There's no way I was going to figure out how much I needed to cut that recipe down to make 2 servings with a little leftover.  So I went looking.  There are lots and lots of roasted tomatillo recipes out there.  So as I frequently do when I want to make something "mine," I looked at several recipes and picked out the parts of each recipe I liked the best.

In my searching, I found a recipe that called for "roasting" the vegetables on the stove in a large skillet.  Sounded like a good idea to prevent heating up my kitchen on a 95 degree day.

Okay...let me pause right here to say something...I realize not all bloggers who share recipes on their blog are food bloggers.  Totally get it.  But if you are going to post a recipe on a blog and you want to share that recipe with the world, find a way to make the recipe printable.  And if you aren't going to do that, somewhere in your recipe - under the name of the recipe, at the end of the directions, somewhere - put the name or URL of your blog.  Why?  Because I print out 10 or more recipes a week and stuff them in a folder to be filed in my big recipe binder.  Most recipes I bookmark, some I do not for one reason or another.  Once that recipe is printed out, if the name of the blog is not on my print out, trust me, I have NO idea where it came from.  There's just too much stuff rattling around in my head for me to remember.  Why is this important?  Because when I start to talk about something fantastic like roasted tomatilla salsa and I want to blog about it, suddenly I can't give credit to the person who was smart enough to come up with it before me.

Ahem...anyway, so where were we....

Yes, "roasting" veggies on the stove....

I chose the option of roasting the veggies on the stove.  Actually, what we're really doing with that method is sauteing them.  There was a moment once everything was sauteed, diced, peeled, and pulverized with my food chopper, I tasted for seasoning and said to myself "Meh...maybe it will be better once it's refrigerated." Which led me to shove it in the fridge and stop taking pictures for the blog.  I figured we'd eat it because it was there and I'd never make it again.

PAH!  Oh.my.goodness!  Once it chilled in the fridge for a couple hours and I added the avocado to it, this stuff was like crack.  My husband and I kept dishing it up onto our plate with the taquitos.  In fact between the two of us, we polished off about 1 1/2 cups of the stuff in less than 24 hours.  Seriously.

Next time I make it, I'll use a white onion, but this time around I only had a red onion.  I think I'll also add more garlic next time too.  Oh, and did anyone else know tomatillos were sticky under that cool little husk?  They are.  Be sure to wash them off well.

Roasted Tomatillo Salsa with Avocado

4 tomatillos, husked, rinsed and halved
2 cloves of garlic
1 large jalapeno
1/2  large onion
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
2 tablespoons lime juice
Salt
1 avocado

Spray a large skillet lightly with oil and heat over medium heat.  Place the tomatillos cut side down in the skillet along with the garlic and jalapeno.  Cook about 4-5 minutes or until tomatillos brown.  Turn all the vegetables over and cook another 4-5 minutes.

Put jalapeno in a small plastic bag to steam.

Place onion, tomatillos, garlic, cilantro, lime juice and salt in food processor or blender.  Peel the skin off the jalepeno, cut in half and remove seeds and ribs.  Add to food processor.

Pulse 10-15 seconds or until all the vegetables are finely diced and well incorporated.  Taste for seasoning.  Add lime juice or salt as needed.

Pour into a bowl and chill in the refrigerator at least one hour.

Once chilled, cut avocado in half, pit, and scoop out the flesh.  Add to the salsa mixture.  Using the back of a fork, mash well.  Stir to combine.

Makes 1 1/2 cups.