While there may not be a Whistle Stop Cafe for us, there are certainly plenty of green tomatoes in the garden as a result of the on/off British summer. With the threat of high winds today, I went out this morning to harvest anything that I was concerned about losing to the wind. My cherry tomatoes have done well at ripening and I have a great haul of them (I’ll let you know where they are in a minute) but what to do with the very large tomatoes that have not even reached full size let alone ripened?
With a little inspiration from the film mentioned above (which if you haven’t seen you must) and a quick look on the internet I concocted a little platter for James and I to share along with some leftover fish. It was basically the green tomatoes sliced, dusted in seasoned flour and then fried in a little oil. However, when I tasted a little bit as it came out the pan I was not very impressed with the flavour or rather lack of. I had a little brainwave of topping the scalding hot tomatoes with some of my homemade cheese with some fresh mint added to give it more of a zing.
Before you wonder at the homemade cheese, it is little more than the tail end of the 4 pints of milk we have delivered each week heated to blood temperature. I add a tablespoon of white wine vinegar as I mix gently with a fork then leaving the whole thing to separate and cool before straining the curds from the whey through a cloth. With salt added this is a very rudimentary and easy to make cheese and a great way to use up on the turn milk.
Anyway I digress, I got the cheese out the fridge and mixed in a handful of chopped mint and a few chives and hey presto. On top of the tomatoes they did add the other dimension that they needed to make my green toms into a pretty good starter.
Now for the cherry tomatoes – these are currently in the oven where they will be for the next 8-10 hours on 50 degrees to dry them out before I put them in a jar with rapeseed oil to cover. I did this two years ago and we only finished off these tomatoes at the beginning of this year. I will keep you up to date on how they turn out 🙂
-Emily
What a fantastic idea regarding the baking and drying of the tomatoes. I’m definately going to give this a go. I make my own chutney from farm vegetables but hadn’t occurred to me try dried tomatoes in oil 🙂
If you still have green tomatoes left, you can wrap them in newspaper, like apples, and store them in a cool place. They will slowly ripen and can be kept for weeks. I keep mine in my pantry and use them right up to Christmas. Obviously they are not quite that vine fresh sun ripened tomato of August, but they are perfectly good to cook with.
I have never thought of trying to make homemade cheese, but I will as soon as I can (even though I am kicking myself for pouring away a slightly off pint this morning)!
What?? Homemade cheese?? Where DO you find the time???
How inspirational and, as Joanne says, how do you find the time? It’s taken me two days just to get round to reading your post!!!
If you start to have a few too many fried green tomatoes you can always use the tomatoes in a green tomato chutney. It may not sound very nice but the recipe I found at Margeland (http://margeland.co.uk/blog/2008/09/17/green-tomato-chutney/) is excellent. I add a few cardamon seeds which I think improves it even further. The only downside is it disappears really quickly and once you make it you’re unlikely to buy the mass-produced stuff ever again!
I don’t even bother wrapping my still green tomatos. Just put them in a bowl on the side and they slowly ripen! Wrapping is more effort and haven’t needed to yet! And my Dad has been doing it for years too like that. 🙂