Green Tomatoes: Yes, I Can!

I had to leave them behind. My babies, my jewels, my tomatoes.

Having booked an 8-day, out-of-state vacation back in August, I never dreamed I'd still be waiting for most of my tomatoes to ripen two days before I left in mid-October. Unwilling to leave them to the rapidly cooling Fall temperatures, I cut the tomatoes off of the plants leaving a little bit of the vine attached. The ones that had begun to blush were deposited in a brown paper bag in hopes that they would ripen while I was away. But what to do with the rest--the green "rocks" that were the considerable balance of the crop?

To call them rocks is a bit insulting. They did their best with what we were given, after all. But what to do ....fried green tomatoes? Chutney? No, pickles; firm, crunchy and slightly sweet ice box pickles!

The basic recipe (see below) is hot brine poured over cut up vegetables. I decided to toss in the handful of yellow wax and Jalapeno peppers I'd manage to grow in another Topsy Turvy planter along with some garlic. Mission accomplished, I slid nearly two quarts of green tomato pickles into the refrigerator and finished packing my bags.

Nine days later I returned to find pickles so vinegary that they were practically inedible. But I wasn't yet defeated: I strained out the pickles reserving the liquid, put them back in the jar and diluted the pickling liquid with 1/3 water. They were much better after only a day. Lesson learned: taste the pickling liquid BEFORE you pour it in. It needs to be able to stand alone.

Incidentally, the tomatoes in the brown bag were red and ready to eat by the time I returned from vacation. Though they were not a flavorful as the ones that had time to ripen on the plant, they still tasted considerably better than grocery store tomatoes. And trust me, they didn't last long. Well worth the effort.

So in conclusion, yes, it seems I can can.

BASIC ICE BOX PICKLE RECIPE

2 C white vinegar
2 C water
1/4 C kosher salt
Sugar to taste
2 T pickling spice (Schilling brand, or your choice of whole spices)
4-5 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed slightly with the flat of a knife to release the flavor
Vegetables, cubed, sliced, speared, or whole

Combine vinegar, water, salt, sugar and pickling spice in saucepan, adjusting flavors to your taste. As you bring the liquid to a boil, prepare garlic and vegetables, filling jar(s) nearly to top. Pour boiling pickling liquid over vegetables to top of jar and allow to cool before covering and placing in refrigerator.

Pickles are ready to eat after a few hours refrigeration. They will not keep indefinitely, so plan to eat them within 6 weeks.

Garden Tomatoes: The Jewels in the Crown

When people say that the only way to get good fresh tomatoes is to grow them yourself, believe them. Since I am a notorious houseplant slayer (I actually killed a cactus once), I have shied away from growing any food more complicated than snap peas for years. But having some time on my hands this year, I decided to give in to the tomato hunger and try growing my own Roma and Burpee Big Boy tomatoes from nursery starts.

I may have possibly picked the worst growing season in years to become a novice tomato farmer. After an unseasonably warm February, Seattle settled back into a cold Spring and tardy Summer. So I decided to try out those crazy Topsy Turvy Tomato planters you see on t.v. They're supposed to be foolproof BTW, but that is not actually true: you can over water tomatoes by following the product directions, causing black spots and rot to form on the plants. I learned that it's a far, far better thing to refresh a slightly parched plant than to have to amputate branches to contain the spread of fungus.

The garden, located behind the palace, is semi-shady. Nevertheless, the planters produced their advertised greenhouse effect with the limited sunlight and this helped to compensate for the otherwise cool Summer temperatures. The large "starts" were planted in early June, and flowers and then fruit formed by late August.

I did finally get some true, flavorful Roma tomatoes out of the deal by OCTOBER. (The Big Boy variety just didn't get the time/heat they needed to produce much of a crop though I found a use for the shiny green rocks later.*) The true vine ripe Roma's may have looked like their grocery store relatives and probably cost me about four times more per pound to grow, but they sure tasted different. The good kind of different. Needless to say, I hoarded them like the treasures they were!

*Next time: Green Tomatoes: Yes, I Can!