Green Tomatoes

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After recovering a large amount of green tomatoes from our raised bed last week, we were faced with the challenge of preserving and consuming them. Frankly, I had never tried these before and it turns out they are not the acidic fruit I expected them to be. So this week was primarily dedicated to this surprise harvest of green tomatoes.

The first attempt to use the green tomatoes came in the form of a pie. Unlike most other families in Canada we decided to celebrate our Thanksgiving dinner not with a pumpkin pie desert, but a green tomato pie.

Using a home-made shell (Christine is great at producing these), we prepared the filling very simply as you would an apple pie. This just entailed a mix of white and brown sugar, some cinnamon and a touch of flour to thicken the filling once cooked. The tomatoes themselves were just diced and mixed with these ingredients.

The result was quite a surprise. The pie was as good if not better than a home-made apple pie! In fact, the family consumed the entire thing before I could get a second taste.

We concluded that this could be a great desert for the coming winter months and decided to dice a few of our tomatoes for storage in what is now our packed freezer.

Obviously we still had quite a bit of tomatoes left, so we went on to try another recipe. This time it was green tomato relish. We shredded tomatoes, onions, green and red bell peppers. Using cheese cloth, we let the juices drain from this mixture and then added some celery seed and mustard seed. The whole thing was cooked with a combination of vinegar and sugar.

The result was actually quite pleasing. Although, I was not a fan of relish before, I've now developed a taste for it. Perhaps a British "thing", we found it went extremely well with a strong cheddar cheese.

Even though we used quite a few pounds of tomatoes and generated jars of relish (perhaps more than a year's worth!), we were still left with a lot produce. So another effort in canning was called for. This time: green tomato salsa.

In this case, we combined diced green tomatoes with diced red bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, onions and cilantro. We added cumin, oregano, cayenne pepper, salt and black pepper along with a good dose of lime juice and vinegar. We boiled the mixture and after some simmering we were ready for more canning.

I have to say that this salsa is one of the best I have ever tried. Although we made quite a few jars, I think they will be consumed quite rapidly.

Of course, we still had more green tomatoes to consume! So one last recipe was called for.

This time we tried fried green tomatoes. Something new to most of us (although Candice had once tried these in  Louisianna). To make these, we prepared a batter of buttermilk and eggs. After dipping sliced green tomatoes in this batter, we covered them in a mixture of corn meal, salt and pepper.

We then simply pan fried the tomatoes roughly 5 minutes per side.

The results were once again surprising. These things tasted much better than they looked. So we decided to slice some of our green tomatoes in preparation for freezing (hoping they will hold out well) with the intention of having some of these at hand for future frying. My next challenge will be to develop a hot sauce for dipping.

In the end, I think we've come to two conclusions. First, you can grow a lot of food in a very small amount of space (we still have more green tomatoes to process!). Second green tomatoes are actually a very versatile food that can easily be transformed into a tasty treat.

Although harvesting is now mostly over, we can still take the time to pick a few things that remain on the land. This week, Grandma Scholaert came to the farm and had a thrill picking more green tomatoes (of course!), celery and parsley from the raised beds, but as well wild Rapini and arctic kiwis. In fact, when I thought we had pretty much picked everything, the kiwis have become more evident now that the vine leaves are falling. They are very ripe and still a pleasure to eat even so late in the season.

We continued with the development of our preserves this week. This time it was all about "confiture de lait" or milk jam (I have to admit, it does not sound appetizing in English). Confiture de Lait is originally from Normandy and being half-Normand, I had to give it a try.

The legend is that this was developed by one of Napoleon's army cooks. Of course, the discovery was the result of a mistake. The cook had left sweetened milk on his stove and returned to find what would eventually become "confiture de lait".

This preserve is very similar to "dulce de leche" which is very popular in Latin America. The primary difference is that the latter uses concentrated milk and does not usually include vanilla.

This brings me to the ingredients; very simply, they are milk (NOT skimmed or partly skimmed but as whole as you can get it), sugar and vanilla. I combined 1 litre of milk with 1/2 kg of sugar and a vanilla pod. You simply bring this to a boil, skim the residue that forms on the surface and then bring it to a simmer. 

The next step is perhaps the most tedious. It will take 1 1/2 to 2 hours to achieve the desired caramel brown colour and consistency. By this time your ingredients will have reduced to no more than 1/2 litre. During this period it is very important to keep watch on the mixture stirring consistently at least every 10 minutes.

The result is a really decadent caramel!

The trick now is to incorporate produce from the farm. I have a few things in mind, the first being the nuts that are so abundant. Right now the Black Walnuts are curing, but in the next two weeks, I am looking to create something special which I think will be a delicious topping to scones for our Tea House.

Our work on the land also continues and mostly we are still cleaning the forward half of the farm. The immediate results are amazing and I think we've already tripled the fruit production area. Now we face the difficult task of deciding what to plant and in which proportions. Already planned for next spring are black currants, red and yellow raspberries, red gooseberries and two varieties of cider apples. This alone encompasses more than a thousand plants and I'm afraid we will have reached our planting capacity ....but definitely not the land capacity. 

I leave this week with a very common sight in this part of the world, particularly in the fall. This is the Blue Jay. Now that they have paired, these birds can be seen flying all around the property, competing rather aggressively with bright red Cardinals.