I write this while in the next room a pile of ingredients for tomatilla salsa lay (lie?) waiting for my attention. It's not so terribly late but I am very tired and I just don't know if I have it in me tonight. If I bucked up, poured an iced tea and got to business I know I'd be glad for it later so perhaps I'll have to let that thought carry me through since Brainiac's installation of air conditioning in the kitchen has nearly completely removed my former favorite excuse for procrastination - the heat and humidity of a Philadelphia summer - from use. Ah, well.

Tomatilla salsa is one of those things that I make about once and year and really love having around. Not only is it great plain on tortilla chips, but it's a good ingredient to glam up otherwise workaday dishes. It's wonderful over grilled steak, for example, or as a spread on a wrap (mixed with mayo and a bit of lime is even better). It can be part of a salad dressing or folded into a crepe batter and is a little piece of heaven inside an omelet along with a bit of chevre.
Hey, look what I did...talked myself right into it. At the very least I'll get everything diced and minced tonight and will likely do the actually canning tomorrow night. That's always a good compromise.

My other big project for the weekend is to complete the tote I've started for my sister. I gave one of these to my youngest sis for Christmas and had so much fun making it that I've added it to my gift-giving repertoire. This one is made from the directions in Christina Strutt's Romantic Home Sewing in a sort of wheat colored canvas. My plan is to embroider an initial or perhaps a flower or something on one side. Whatever I decide, I need to get it done because her birthday is in a little under two weeks and the tote must be mailed. I need to step on it, in other words. The only hold up I see is making the handles, a task that involves turning little fabric tubes right-side out and which is my least favorite sewing task. Like the salsa, I suppose, I will just have to buck up.