Shrimp in Tomatillo and Herb Sauce

This picture may look gross, but don't let it fool you.  It tasted amazing.  (Well, the shrimp and sauce were amazing.  The rice and squash, well, I guess you can't just eat shrimp by itself for dinner.)

I recently got a new phone.  I don't know how to use it but Ken set some stuff up for me.  One of the things now on one of my 20394899 home screens is a little feed of NY Times articles - I specifically requested the food section, of course.  On the first day I had this, I saw that they were featuring tomatillos along with several recipes.  All I had been able to find up to this point was salsa verde!  Naturally, I was thrilled.  I chose to make Shrimp in Tomatillo and Herb Sauce. 

As I said, this was delicious, but we did run into a problem.  This is the first year I have ever (knowingly) eaten tomatillos, and I've been getting them from our CSA.  On the pick-your-own board every week it says "poor quality" next to the tomatillos.  This may or may not have been a factor in our problem.

What was this problem?  (I've been building it up a little too much.)  According to the recipe directions, you are supposed to puree the tomatillos and herbs in a blender, then simmer the sauce on the stove with the shrimp in it.  Maybe it was our tomatillos, but we had next to no liquid in our sauce.  The blender wouldn't even work - we had to get the food processor dirty as well too.  (Next time I'll use my judgment, though, and go with the food processor the first time.)  We tried adding oil and water in small amounts but it wasn't doing any good.  We briefly heated the sauce in a skillet, added the shrimp, and miraculously we were able to coat them without any problems.  The sauce stuck to them like glue.  In the end, it was more of a pesto, but it was certainly delicious.  Another note to myself: picking the two largest serranos for this tiny amount of sauce was not necessarily the best idea you've ever had.  Next time, go with the two smallest instead.