Green tomatoes

[msmemory_archive]

As I nestled the tomato plants into their support cages today, I knocked a couple of unripe green tomatoes off the plants. Can I do anything with them?

Comments

[gardenfey.livejournal.com]

Fried green tomatoes, or chutney.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

Sliced, they'll work as a substitute for apples in apple pie. It's also possible that sitting them on a windowsill for a while will ripen them to normalcy.

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

Oh, Cynthia -- you can't be serious.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

I am, too! Firstly, Laura's mom does it in the Little House books. And I've done it too, but they need to be sliced, or else the sugar doesn't permeate them enough.

But here's some other sources for your edification:
The following recipe for Green Tomato Pie, ... is from American Cookery (1972, Galahad Books) by the late James Beard, one of the foremost authorities on American food.

and here, which also covers other uses for them:
You'll be amazed at the chameleon-like quality of green tomatoes in desserts. With a little creative seasoning, green tomato pie tastes just like apple pie, and green tomato cake is just a moist and delicious spice cake with a secret. Green tomatoes have also been known to show up in jars of homemade preserves. When you add some sugar the flavor of green tomatoes becomes quite neutral and when mixed with other fruit, they become a wonderful way to stretch out that batch of jam or mincemeat.

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

That was green pumpkin laura's ma used in.... The Long WInter? I remember the passage you're refering to, and i'm pretty sure it's pumpkin.

(Did you know that in The First Four Years, when Laura makes a pie out of "Pie Plant" she was talking about rhubard? I found that out last week. I thought it was some random plant, not one my mom had in our backyard.)

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

My mom used to make pickled green tomatoes, and also slice them and fry them. And I'm afraid the mental "taste" of them pickled and deep fried is completely at odds with anything sweet.... sorry!

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

I remember how shocked I was to find that Ember Day Tart, quite sweet, had onions as the major ingredient.

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

I do remember that one feast in my experience, too! It's the Infamous Onions and Raisin Feast, from about 1980, where everything Duchess Caellyn made had one or the other, or both, in it.

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

Um...okay. But I was agreeing with you about the green tomatoes being kinda weird for a substitute for apple pie filling.

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

Ah, got it. Sorry for the non comprehension there!

(Can I use the excuse that jen's 2nd trimester brain rot is contagious?)

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

I don't think so. After all, if it was communicable, then the baby would be beaming mind-grow-waves at you and you'd be sharper than a tack now!

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

Not sucking it out?

[alienor.livejournal.com]

You may be able to put them in a bag with ripe tomatoes and they'll emit a gas or something that will ripen the green ones. I've never done it, but that's why mom always told me not to leave a bunch of tomatoes in a bag together.

[cloudwatcher.livejournal.com]

They are really yummy sliced and baked on top of a pizza, or used to make green tomato salsa.

I actually prefer green tomatoes to ripe ones.

[cloudwatcher.livejournal.com]

Here you go:

http://www.sweetbabymedia.com/recipes/special/greentomato.shtml

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

My dad used to pickel them (quartered).

[hrj.livejournal.com]

My mom has a recipe for green tomato relish, but that takes a bit more than just a couple. But other than some extra tartness, I'd think you could use then for any regular cooked tomato purpose.

Sure!

[new-man.livejournal.com]

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/15226

(BTW, epicurious.com has about a billion recipes with "green tomato" as an ingredient)

[its-just-me.livejournal.com]

Fry em up!! I tried it for the first time last year and boy were they good. I just used seasoned flour and nothing else.

[artisticphoenix.livejournal.com]

My mother, being very frugal, used to wrap them in newspaper and put them on the windowsill. They would then ripen.