Tiny Yukon Golds, Salsa Verde, and other Summer Magic

I know it's probably not the smartest thing in the world to plant a whole bed of baby yukon gold potatoes in the middle of summer in southern New Mexico, but I was so excited when I saw them for sale at our local garden/hardware store, I couldn't resist. Even more thrilling was when they emerged from little eyelets into full grown plants. Almost ALL of them!!

Now I'm just waiting around for them to grow grow grow those magical tubers. Hopefully their harvest will happen to coincide with when we have to move (about two weeks). The other day I noticed a couple of the plants was looking wilty-- okay more like on death's door, so I couldn't resist feeling around its roots and voila!

Potatoes!!!!! Now I realize they're not going to win any ribbons at the state fair, but it brings back that amazing feeling I had when we had a plot at the community gardens in Indiana, and I grew a whole row of potatoes, soybeans, more tomatoes than I knew what to do with, celery, brussels sprouts, and what not (see the earliest postings, it's part of why I started this blog). I GREW FOOD in the GROUND! And I'm going to EAT IT!

One of my summer readings is Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. She writes in the very first pages "We wanted to live in a place that could feed us: where rain falls, crops grow, and drinking water bubbles up out of the ground." I understand that sentiment, even after living only 2 years in the dry southwest. But it's nice to see that we can indulge green-thumbed desires here. Knowing that we'll have to pack up and move a little ways down the road, we're trying to emotionally part with the lovely backyard that we fell in love with, and planted all our tomatoes, lettuces, basils and catnips in pots.

In addition to my tiny potato excitement, Zips is thrilled to be growing several tiny tomatillo plants. When we had our garden plot in Indiana, we had more tomatillos early on than we knew what to do with. I wrote long ago about our "salsa verde crudo." But now Zips has perfected her Salsa Verde:

Zipper's Salsa Verde Perfecto

2 lb. tomatillos (husked, rinsed, chopped)

1 medium onion

1-2 whole serrano chiles

1/2 c. cilantro

1-2 cloves garlic

juice of 1 lime

salt & (secret ingredient) ground celery seed (or celery salt)!

Chuck everything into your food processor and chop until everything is well combined. It may help to start chopping the harder foods first (onion, garlic, chiles) then add the juicy parts that you wouldn't want to accidently liquify (tomatillo), before adding and adjusting the cilantro, lime, ground celery seed and salt. I've never posted a photo of our Salsa Verde before, because we usually eat it all before I've had a chance (I once posted a photo of an empty glass bowl). But we've discovered that this actually keeps in the fridge pretty well, and if the serranos start off too spicy, it actually mellows in the fridge.

The other magical summer staple that Zips has utterly perfected lately is her heavenly guacamole. The magic, in our case, is in the molcajete she bought me last christmas:
I had a revelation (way too late) that those little black plastic tripod bowls that you sometimes get salsa in at Mexican restaurants are, basically, fake molcajetes. So this is a rough, heavy mortar and pestle made of volcanic stone that you season by grinding rice and rock salt until the inside starts to smooth out. Then you grind raw garlic cloves, cumin, salt into a paste and let it sit 24 hours. If you aren't driven mad with how good it smells, it will give your guacamole the most amazing flavors. We use avocado, lime, and just a little onion, tomato, cilantro, serrano, and garlic and a dash of salt (no measurements you cry? tweak em till it's perfect!). If we have a bag of the local tortillaria's chips, and we make both of these, it will be a good night indeed!