Fun with Tomatillos

I recently survived an assassination attempt by a rogue habanero in my morning eggs. That cute little green baby pepper that I thought would add a little kick to my egg/havarti/tomato scramble was more deadly than a juvenile rattlesnake lurking in the Mexican desert.

As I do my lamaze breathing to get through the pain, I'm still grateful to my mom's amazing neighbor who loaded me up with bags of tomatoes, tomatillos and peppers. Her neighbor hails from deep Mexico, with a penchant for growing the world's hottest peppers. Seriously. He has at least 35 hyperactively fruiting pepper plants with peppers that vary in heat from scorching to ground zero nuclear blast. "You like peppers?" he asked me eagerly. "Uh, yeah!" I replied, imagining cheese stuffed poblanos served with a mild jalapeno salsa. Or maybe a pilaf stuffed green pepper. Ooooh, or maybe roasted red peppers dolloped with sour cream. But no... these peppers have a lethal quality best saved for Mayan poison darts.

I also have a countertop overflowing with tomatillos and tomatoes. What to do with all of this bounty? Although I own Ball canning jars, I have no idea how to actually can. Does salsa freeze? I sip my morning coffee and google "tomatillo recipes" hoping inspiration will strike.
Aha. Good old Mark Bittman. I'll try his tomatillo salsa that I found on his NYT blog Bitten, but without the cilantro as I have no desire to run to the grocery store today. His Kitchen Express cookbook version adds some sweetness and omits the cilantro, so I'll combine the two recipes. But wait, here's an Epicurious version that roasts the tomatillos under the broiler. I'll do that too.

I also have a slab of meat in the fridge that I have no idea what to do with... cooking meat has never been my thing. It possible that I know even less about cooking meat than I do about the economic politics of Angola. So it looks like some sort of grilled steak with salsa is on the menu. I looked at the label on the meat slab - chuck roast. (It's from a local farm and it came in a box of mixed cuts.) I consulted The Barbecue Bible only to find that chuck roast is best suited to long slow heat methods, such as braising. Crap. Too late, I've already got the grill started.

Later that night...

I have an awesome salsa success and "an okay to pretty good" result with the chuck roast on the grill. I broiled the tomatillos and peppers, threw in about a 1/4 of a pear instead of sugar added the rest of the ingredients and WOW. Even my reticent husband took a bite and said, "you MADE this?" That's pretty much lavish praise coming from him.