tomatillo | Gladsome Lights

The children and I had a good time scavenging in my garden for any remaining edibles. My New Zealand Spinach, known down under as warrigal, I think, popped up and was immediately lush after recent rains, so I picked a gallon of leaves to make Creamy Green Soup with.

The boys used a few of the leaves as a foundation for multiple gorgeous culinary creations, several of which were proudly presented as “fully edible.” I did eat one whole plateful, and we all nibbled on pineapple guavas that we found on the ground at the back of the bush, and almost-ripe pomegranate seeds. We found a few sweet tomatillos here and there, but there were only two fruits on the strawberry tree. Olives and salvia flowers and pomegranate flowers all contributed to extravagant visual displays.

Skeleton of a tomatillo husk. It contained seeds and a fly.

Meanwhile, Soldier cleaned my rain gutters
and Joy raked the paths of pine and redwood needles.

On our drizzly walks we’ve admired liquidambar trees with deep red leaves yet to drop, and collected cotoneaster berries for the next phase of Christmas decorating. My grandson Pat and his new bride are joining us for Christmas Eve!

Here are the remaining “Baby Jesuses” that we made from salt dough about thirty years ago, re-wrapped in their twill tape swaddling clothes and set under my second little Christmas tree, given by my neighbor and decorated by the children just tonight.

“Away in a walnut shell…”

So many mornings the sun does not come out until late. But I picked the last of my Elephant Heart plums this week, and the first two figs of the season the week before. Just now I wandered around the garden (noon and sunny) and cut three zucchini.

I’m trying to get back to my habit of going to the beach once a week. It’s been foggy on the coast, too, but pleasant enough that I can wear just a thin linen shirt. Last time I saw an unfamiliar bird, a little smaller than the usual sea gulls. There were many parties of a dozen or so, mostly sitting together and looking out to sea. When I got home and researched, I discovered that they are Heermann’s Gulls.

There were also lots of the charming Godwits out there fishing.

Sea Palm

Every person in a large family at church was sick recently, which gave me the opportunity to have fun in the kitchen, making dinner for them one day. Most of the time I am trying, usually in vain, to cook for one, and eat for one. It seems impossible to learn, and not that enjoyable. So I made the most of this occasion to cook big batches of lots of dishes, enough for leftovers. It was the perfect day to make lemon curd, and I roasted both onions and Brussels sprouts, keeping back half for myself.

The giant sunflower plants in front are dangerously close to breaking their branches and/or falling over, so I pruned them and cut some of the blooms to add to the dinner box.

This is the first year I’ve ever grown a tomatillo. My neighbor gave me a seedling that he had started. It is branching out everywhere with yard-long stems, and the husks that will house the fruit, as yet unformed, are tender lime-green lanterns. In this next picture it’s climbing over a tomato vine so there is a confusion of types of leaves.

Wikipedia says, “The wild tomatillo and related plants are found everywhere in the Americas except in the far north, with the highest diversity in Mexico. In 2017, scientists reported on their discovery and analysis of a fossil tomatillo found in the Patagonian region of Argentina, dated to 52 million years BP. The finding has pushed back the earliest appearance of the Solanaceae plant family of which the tomatillo is one genus.”

I asked a man from Oaxaca, Mexico what his family does with tomatillos, and he didn’t know of any use but salsa, which is also the only thing I had ever heard. Does any of you have a good recipe for tomatillos, or another use? They don’t look like they’ll be ripe anytime soon, but I should be ready with a plan!