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Saving the tomatoes

Blog: Nosh On

October 13, 2009

I can't stand to see good stuff go to waste. So last Wednesday, in anticipation of the weekend's freeze, I pulled out all of my tomato plants and stripped them of their yet-to-ripen tomatoes.

In years past, I've fried the green tomatoes, made green tomato jam and pickled the unripe buggers.

This year, I cooked and canned green tomato relish from a portion of harvest. I'm not a big relish fan in general but I like this stuff. Its bright flavor provided for a nice contrast on my meatloaf sandwich today. With eight pints, I'll have to figure out other things to do with it. Maybe it will have to be given as gifts.

With the rest of the green tomatoes, I'm making green tomato jam. I made this recipe a couple of years ago with fantastic results. The jam is tangy and sweet and goes very well on vanilla ice cream. One of my favorite things about it is the texture. If you have any leftover green tomatoes, it's worth the time to make it.

What do you do with your green tomatoes?

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joanne 2 years, 3 months ago

Saving the tomatoes

I put them on a platter and place it in the back guest room. When they have sufficiently shriveled and died, I will toss them into the field. Haven't you ever read Erma Bombeck? You have to be sure things are dead before you discard them, In the refrigerator, a bowl or jar of some undecipherable item has to have the green mold covered by black mold before you can honestly throw it out.

Mom 2 years, 3 months ago

Saving the tomatoes

Joanne, That's exactly how I determine whether something is truly beyond usefulness. Rochelle, can verify that. I have good intentions but that's as far as it goes with saving and preserving food. The same goes for sewing and fabrics. The unfortunate part there is that the fabric doesn't rot and die in my lifetime so I have to give it to Goodwill so I don't feel guilty every time I see it. Mom

2 years, 3 months ago

Saving the tomatoes

What do you do with your green tomatoes?< Back in my gardening days I followed some advice and gathered all the large green fruit I could find right before the first frost and hauled them down into our basement and covered them with a layer of newspaper. To my delight they all turned a beautiful red color in just a few days...to my dismay they were all bland and tasteless and I've never bothered with them since. :-)

2 years, 3 months ago

Saving the tomatoes

I can't stand to see good stuff go to waste.< My mother was the same way. It was the signature of that generation that came out of the Great Depression thankful for having enough food to eat. Although I miss my parents with all my heart, I have learned to look at food differently today. We used to have to clean our plates because mom would not allow us to waste food. It genuinely grieved her to see food thrown out. Today if a family-use fruit tree drops its crop before we have a chance to harvest it I no longer have a conniption fit. I now view it as recycling fertility and I do not fertilize that same tree the following year. You see, as an orchardist, we should all know that you only put something back if you take something away. In other words, a full grown orchard would be self-sustaining if all the fruit was allowed to drop on the ground every year and was never removed from the orchard floor, therefore, the orchard would never need additional fertilizer. Today when any food goes to waste in our home, it simply ends up beneath a fruit tree in our orchard with no guilt and no additional girth in our waistlines. We are content knowing that the tree will use what we cannot eat and it will reward us the following year.

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