Green Tomatoes. So Many Green Tomatoes.

Twenty-two and a half pounds, to be precise (ish). That's how many green tomatoes I picked on Oct. 19 on a rainy day at the end of the growing season. Around 12-1/2 bigger tomatoes of various varieties from Roma to San Marzano to Black Prince to an heirloom yellow one, about 10 pounds of cherry and grape tomatoes. These plants have been prolific all summer long and I've already processed a lot of tomatoes.

What to do, what to do. 

A search yielded a number of options:

• Fermented Green Tomatoes: A comment on Reddit/Canning suggested these might resemble green olives, I assume in appearance rather than flavor.
• Pickled Green Tomatoes: Small Batch Pickled Green Tomatoes by Food in Jars, Pickled Green Tomatoes by Creative Canning with several spice options; Crunchy Pickled Green Tomatoes by Brooklyn Farm Girl, a quick pickle version that will need to be kept refrigerated so nope, not good for lots and lots of tomatoes; Pickled Sweet Green Tomatoes by National Center for Home Food Preservation
• Green Tomato/Tomatillo Chutney from Brooklyn Farm Girl: I still have around 3 gallons of tomatillos from last October's final harvest and this would be a way of using them up. But do I really want to add any volume at all to 22-1/2 pounds of green tomatoes?!?!
• Relish: Not my favorite condiment 
• Salsa and some other ideas, but that salsa recipe reads a lot like salsa verde and I still have some of that left from last year along with all those tomatilloes
• Cake?! : Not a recipe for long-term preservation, but interesting
• Green Tomato Ketchup: I know from experience this will take for-absolutely-ever to cook down but I have so many tomatoes I'm tempted to try it out, and maybe it could work in a slow cooker. Several recipe options: Mamta Gupta's Green Tomato Ketchup; Green Tomato Ketchup by From the Larder (which calls for British Mixed Spice and she kindly includes the recipe for that; it sounds great for oatmeal, quick breads, baking, other uses); a 1940s Green Tomato Recipe from Gourmet; a Quebec Green Tomato Recipe posted on Reddit that says to soak the tomatoes and celery in salted water overnight so that would mean planning ahead and a quantity of "20-25 green tomatoes" with no reference to either weight or volume so that's a bit vague; a Green Tomato Recipe on Spruce Eats; and then there's the seasoning mix suggested in my edition of The Joy of Cooking, copyright 1975 (which matters because they changed things for more recent editions) for Tomato Catsup that could presumably work in a green tomato ketchup, although I'm surprised they didn't have a recipe involving green tomatoes. Looking for more versions of the Quebecois recipe, I learned that for some people, particularly in the American South, a reference to Green Tomato Ketchup labels something that's more of a chutney or even chow-chow, which I made last year with some of my green tomatoes and which includes cabbage as an ingredient. If I go this route I'm going to make a smooth ketchup/catsup more similar to the red kind in texture.
• Dehydrated Green Tomatoes: I just loaned out my dehydrator to a friend who needs to process 50-60 pounds of chantarelles so this won't work for me, but something to bear in mind for the future. Drying Green Tomatoes by Healthy Canning mentions reconstituting them as “Pomodori verdi secchi in olio di oliva”, which sounds good. Good discussion on Garden Web of drying green tomatoes and other produce with some tips and ideas for use. Video on slicing them with a mandoline and making "chips" with a bit of sugar and salt.
• I could throw them in the freezer until I decide what to do with them, or can them plain for future reincarnation mid-winter when I want to fill the house with the scents of summer.

Last year I'd made green tomato chutney and that was delicious. I have several kinds of chutneys already, although I'm never opposed to having more on hand. Thanks to Mamta Gupta  I learned that the word "chutney" comes from the Hindi word Chatni, "a tangy and spicy sauce/paste that makes you smack your lips." Yes indeedy.

Lip-smackin' goodness, here I come. The list of recipes I worked from to develop mine below, with a note on whether it includes a specific element beyond green tomatoes and onions:

• Green Tomato Chutney with apples, Food.com
• Green Tomato Chutney with apples, Blue Dot Living
• Green Tomato Chutney with apples and green bell peppers,  Culinaria Eugenius (wildlly optimistic cook time here; don't believe it)
• Green Tomato Chutney, Food in Jars
• Spicy Heirloom Tomato Chutney recipe, Food in Jars
•  Green Tomato Chutney, Swasthi's Recipes
• Green Tomato Recipe, Mamta's Kitchen
• Easy Green Tomato Chutney, Lovely Greens

Handy tools: My food processor with the sharp blade serves as one of the key tools for dealing with this many tomatoes and associated ingredients. I picked this little trick up from a ripe tomato chutney recipe and realized I'd been doing a ton of unnecessary hand slicing and dicing for things destined to go into a pan and break down as they cooked. Integrity in hand-crafted artisanal slicing and dicing truly not required.

Another trick I came up with on my own: Using my strawberry capping tool to nip the stems off the tops of tomatoes. I don't core tomatoes and the little bit of skin at the top where the stem attached softens in cooking so I'm not worried about making sure I get every last bit out.

Spices: Most of the recipes I found had fairly low key (boring) spice combinations, not nearly as inspiring as the ones for chutneys made with ripe tomatoes and other ingredients. Dried spices don't affect canning safety so I looked up a few chutney recipes like this Green Tomato Chutney from Swasthi's Recipes (not designed for canning) and this Green Tomato Recipe from Mamta's Kitchen that provided a lot more inspiration. The Food in Jars recipe was also seasoned in a more interesting way than others, one of which just offered up chili powder and salt. Excuse me, do you know where chutneys come from and what makes them delicious??

This looks like a long list of spices and it is. My garam masala was a bit old so I reinforced it with some of the spices that are typical ingredients in this tasty spice blend. You could certainly start with just the seasonings from any of the recipes linked above and decide for yourself what to increase or add.

Fruit: For some reason, several of the recipes didn't call for raisins, which I 100% associate with chutney. Food.com was the exception here. I like to use dried cranberries for some or all of these, and this time I also went for some dried dates. (Yes, home botanists, tomato is also a fruit.)

Quantities and ratios: Quantities can be adjusted based on tomatoes as the core ingredient, bearing in mind that bigger quantities take a lot longer to cook down. 

The ratios were very different between a couple of sources. For comparison:

• Food.com: Tomatoes 10 lbs., Apples 3 lbs., Onions 3 lbs., Raisins 1 lb., Brown Sugar 1.5 lbs, Vinegar 1 qt.
• Culinaria Eugenius adaptation of Ball: Tomatoes 16 cups, Apples 16 cups, Onions 3 medium (resulting in maybe ~3 cups?), Bell Peppers 3 medium (~3 cups?), Brown Sugar 6 cups, Vinegar 4 cups
• Food in Jars: Tomatoes 6 cups, Onions 1-1/4 cups, Brown Sugar 1-1/2 cups, Vinegar 1 cup
• Lovely Greens: Tomatoes 1 kg. or ~6 cups, Onion 1 kg or ~6 cups, Brown Sugar 500 grams or ~2.5 cups, Vinegar 1 liter or ~1 qt.

Clearly a somewhat flexible set of proportions for the tomatoes, onions, and apples. Smashing all these together I decided this would have to be a taste-and-adjust on proportions to get the right level of tanginess across tomatoes/onions/apples/peppers, building on the ones from Food in Jars and Culinaria Eugenius for sugar and vinegar. 

Sugar and vinegar: Sugar levels are mostly for flavor since this isn't a jam in search of pectin setting qualities, vinegar is for food safety, and both of the recipes I relied on have a ratio of sugar 1.5 to vinegar 1. I started with 4 cups of vinegar, 4 cups of sugar, so I could taste and adjust the sweetness factor.

I also had to deal with the quantities I had available to me. For apples I used some of those I canned earlier this year.

Green Tomato Apple Chutney Recipe

Read this first: Start this recipe early in the day when you have time to tend it and stir often. 

Read this too: Wear an oven mitt when you stir the pot. The mixture will tend to splatter but you can't keep a lid on it or it won't cook down the way it needs to. Hot tomato is very very hot and will burn you. It may look tame, then when you start to stir and loosen the solids the liquid part will suddenly boil up like wild and throw hot tomato droplets at you. Every. Time. You. Stir. Ask me how I know.

This volume completely filled my biggest stockpot. It's a lot.

• Tomatoes: 16 cups chopped
• This was the output from around 6 pounds, whirled briefly in a food processor to create a diced size or chopped by hand if you want to do this the hard way. No need to remove skins.
• Onions: ~7 cups, finely chopped
• For me this was output from 4 truly giant yellow onions, close to 3 pounds, also whirled in the food processor but not until reduced to onion paste.
• Apples: 4 cups home-canned with the juice they were canned in
• No need to chop as these will fall apart into applesauce. If you start with whole apples then yes, reduce to dice. Your call on whether to peel or not.
• Green bell peppers: 4 cups finely chopped, approx. 1-1/2 pounds, output from 3 really giant ones
• You could substitute hotter peppers for some of this if that meets with your family's Scoville settings
• Dried fruits: 2 cups, chopped if they're big to create pieces the size of raisins
• I used dried cranberries and dates
• Optional: Crystallized ginger: 1/2 cup, chopped fine, mostly because I had some left from earlier recipes like my version of Chai Ginger Apple Butter
• Optional: 2-4 T. chopped mild to hot peppers
• Vinegar: 4 cups of a vinegar with 5% acidity
• I used 2 cups each of red wine vinegar and white wine vinegar; you could use apple cider vinegar
• Brown sugar: 4-1/2 cups
• Taste and adjust when the volume has cooked down a bit. I started with 4 cups and added the additional 1/2 cup later.
• Garlic: 8 cloves, crushed, grated, or chopped fine
• Feel free to add more!
• Salt: 2 T.
• Garam masala: 1-1/2 T.
• Curry powder: 2-1/2 T.
• Powdered hot mustard: 1-1/2 T.
• Ground black pepper: 2 t.
• Crushed red pepper: 1-1/2 t.
• Adjust this amount for the heat level you want
• Cumin: 1 t.
• Powdered ginger: 1/2 t.
• Cinnamon: 1/2 t.
• Coriander: 1/2 t.
• Cardamom: 1/2 t.
• Cayenne pepper: Pinch or two, maybe a dash
• Nutmeg: Dash

Stir all ingredients together in a large non-reactive stockpot, or divide between two smaller pots so it can cook down a bit more quickly. 

Bring to a boil, stirring frequently, then reduce to a simmer. Cook, uncovered, stirring often, at a simmer over medium-low heat 2-3 hours or more, or until it has reduced by approximately half. Wear that oven mitt to stir! Be sure to stir completely from the bottom and scrape across the entire bottom of the pot to avoid any scorching of the ingredients.

It will thicken and eventually be scoopable, more like jam than soup. If you get tired of waiting for that phase and it's reasonably thick with a fair amount of the liquid cooked off, no one can stop you from canning it at that stage. I don't think mine had truly reduced by half when I was four hours or more into the cook time but it was late and I was tired so into the canner it went.

When you start seeing it thickening enough that you think this marathon may finally end, prep for hot water canning. Get your canning kettle started toward boiling, sterilize the jars in an oven at 250 degrees for at least 10 minutes, and warm the jar lids in hot water. For more details on hot water bath canning consult the National Center for Home Food Preservation.

Process quarter-pints and half-pints 15 minutes and let sit for 5 in the rack above the hot water before removing to a baking rack covered with a towel.

This was my first time trying out one-piece canning lids, following instructions from Food in Jars. They look so nice! And they pinged just fine, some of them before I even took the jars out of the canning kettle, which is always a good sign of lid quality. I got these from Fillmore Container and they're going to become my standard. Much more attractive when I gift a jar to someone, with more utility.

My yield from quantities above: 16 half-pints, 14 quarter-pints. 

That's probably enough chutney considering I already have zucchini chutney, apple chutney, blackberry chutney, and a couple of jars of last year's green tomato chutney on hand. I'll eat it with cheese on crackers, spread it on sandwiches, maybe put it on scrambled eggs.

As I said, lip smackin'!

And I still have pounds and pounds of green tomatoes.

I like putting a tiny illustration representing the contents on my canning jar labels. This helps me find things at a glance when I'm looking at my garage shelves packed with food in jars.

I like putting a tiny illustration representing the contents on my canning jar labels. This helps me find things at a glance when I'm looking at my garage shelves packed with food in jars.

 

Keep It Growing: Poems about Gardening

We moved into our Olympia house four years ago in late November, too late to do anything about yard or garden. The first spring brought recognition that we were the proud owners of an awful lot of false dandelion, burdock, and a layer of clay, none of which was particularly conducive to the kind of vegetable gardening and naturescaping that I hoped to do.

That meant a year of gardening in pots (tomatoes and herbs) and using my Grampa's Weed Puller weekend after weekend. I plugged the holes with a bit of compost and clover seed, seeking to add some health to the soil and habitat for pollinators when it bloomed. On the side of the property that gets the best sunlight we began laying plans for gardening in raised beds. My sweetheart worked to level the ground for a terraced set-up that will eventually hold six beds. We put in two raised metal bins on another side of the property suitable for growing greens.

Fast forward and I have three of the planned six beds on that sunny side. The raspberries and tayberries we put in next to the house are thriving; the raspberries I didn't prune last fall even gifted me a second late crop of some big, beautiful jewels. The elderberry bush put on so many berries this year that unfortunately the sheer weight broke off a major branch, but the bush has already propagated a little neighboring bush. The nectaplum (a nectarine and plum hybrid), hazelnut, and almond trees are well established and will start producing sometime in the next few years. 

And the tomatoes in those beds! Whoa. Definitely should have planted them with big strong trellises to climb on. I had to muscle those much-needed trellises in late to get the vines up off the ground and somehow got away with it, but next year they'll be trained from the beginning.

As I start each morning with poetry, naturally I find poems that celebrate the earthy abundance of gardening. Before this year's harvest of vegetables and herbs ends, I'll share this harvest of poems.

"Believe This"
Richard Levine

....All morning,
muscling my will against that of the wild,
to claim a place in the bounty of earth,
seed, root, sun and rain, I offered my labor
as a kind of grace, 

"Tender"
Jose Antonio Rodriguez

But about the strength and will to cradle the plants
Outside—the pruning, the watering, the sheltering

In found tarps and twine against the coldest nights.
To lean into the day’s hard edge,

And still find that reserve of tenderness
For the bougainvillea, the hibiscus, the blue morning.

"Patriotism"
Ellie Schoenfeld

My country is this dirt
that gathers under my fingernails
when I am in the garden.
The quiet bacteria and fungi,
all the little insects and bugs
are my compatriots.

"Gardening as a Form of Worship"
Bruce Taylor

To bring us to our knees.
To bring us back to quiet.
Inclined as we are
to this labor and attention.

"Vegetable Love in Texas"
Carol Coffee Reposa

Farmers say
There are two things
Money can't buy:
Love and homegrown tomatoes.

"A Warm Summer in San Francisco"
Carolyn Miller 

Although I watched and waited for it every day,
somehow I missed it, the moment when everything reached
the peak of ripeness.

"Slower"
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

They are beautiful, the Japanese eggplant,
dangling beneath wide fringed leaves.

"Therapy from the Garden"
Glenn Morazzini

From the lettuce there is common sense for narcissism:
acceptance as side dish, garnish for a meaty sandwich.
If that leaf isn’t the dose, there’s always the soil
people shovel and level, rake and make wishful with seed,

"An Observation"
May Sarton

True gardeners cannot bear a glove
Between the sure touch and the tender root,
Must let their hands grow knotted as they move
With a rough sensitivity about
Under the earth, between the rock and shoot,
Never to bruise or wound the hidden fruit.

"The Seven of Pentacles"
Marge Piercy

as things grow in the real world, slowly enough.
If you tend them properly, if you mulch, if you water,
if you provide birds that eat insects a home and winter food,
if the sun shines and you pick off caterpillars,

"Towel and Basin"
Michael Escoubas

This morning I plodded in pajamas
and bare toes toting my full water pitcher,
prepared as an offering for my
hanging blue Fan plant. The tall
grass washed my feet as Jesus might.

"Practice" 
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

I plunge my hands into the soil
and tug on the long white bindweed roots
that cling to the cool damp dark.
Never once have I pulled the whole plant.
Always, the bindweed comes back.

"More"
James Crews

I know it’s summer when we wade out
into the field and pick these crisp wonders,
tiny cucumbers bleached of their green
as if they’ve already seen too much
of this dazzling light, and can take no more.

"Planting the Sand Cherry"
Ann Struthers

It is important for me to be down on my knees,
my fingers sifting the black earth,
making those things grow which will grow.

"Ode to Digging Potatoes"

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Each firm, red-skinned round

I pull from the earth is a small proof

of how things can grow in the dark—

"On the Cusp of Equinox"
Joan Mazza

Summer ends with a chill over the garden,

breath of coolness to make the spinach

and lettuce happy. I pick another bucket

of tomatoes, more chewed each harvest,

and welcome the wildlife to this messy table

A Year of Poems: October

Compiling these lists helps me anticipate the change of season by reminding me of the beauty in each month. Fall is my favorite season in many ways and October embodies it beautifully. We are leaving summer, summer is leaving us as autumn shares her glory and we soak up the sun while we can.

As with all my poetry collections, I share a few lines, not necessarily the first ones, to give you a taste of what you'll find if you follow the link to savor the whole poem.

"Outside" by Dolores Stewart

October.  Its brilliant festival of dry
and moist decay.  Its spicy, musky scent.

"A Leaf" by Bronislaw Maj

A leaf, one of the last, parts from a maple branch:
it is spinning in the transparent air of October, falls
on a heap of others, stops, fades.

"Some October" by Barbara Crooker

Some October, when the leaves turn gold, ask
me if I've done enough to deserve this life
I've been given. 

"Into this Foggy Morning Comes a Song" by Judith Heron

driven by no other instrument than dew
how it gathers into one small drop
falls from a fading apple leaf

"Ode to October" by MK Creel

October lulls us with
its smoky, cinder scent—

leaf pyres, Hickory bark,
pine sap and pith. 

"Reel" by Barbara Crooker

It's half-past October, the woods
are on fire, blue skies stretch
all the way to heaven. 

"Early October Snow" by Robert Haight

The pumpkins, still in the fields, are planets
shrouded by clouds.
The Weber wears a dunce cap
and sits in the corner by the garage
where asters wrap scarves
around their necks to warm their blooms.

"October's Bright Blue Weather" by Helen Hunt Jackson

O suns and skies and clouds of June,
And flowers of June together,
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October's bright blue weather;

"October-Midst" by Eve Merriam

The mornings careless, sun-sprawled, radical with light,
roller-coaster air; plunging to bottomless bright
then giddying climb to shattering sky-sight
blue!

"Flathead Lake, October" by Geraldine Connolly

so too, autumn descends,

to steal the glistening
summer from our open hands.

"October" by Robert Frost

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.

"October 10" by Wendell Berry

Now the only flowers
are beeweed and aster, spray
of their white and lavender
over the brown leaves.

"Mystery" by C.G. Hanzlicek

Roots, the leaves turning,
The spiders hard at their geometry lessons,
The seed that obeys perfectly
Its own limits,
The worms turning among the leaves,
Turning the leaves to compost,

A Year of Poems

• A Year of Poems: January
• A Year of Poems: February
• A Year of Poems: March 
• A Year of Poems: April
• A Year of Poems: May
• A Year of Poems: June
• A Year of Poems: July
• A Year of Poems: August
• A Year of Poems: September