Give them a new life! Many weeks ago we harvested the remaining green tomatoes on our plants before our first freeze of the fall. To get them to ripen we wrapped them individually in small pieces of newspaper and placed them in a single layer in a cardboard box in our basement. According to my grandfather-in-law, the ripening process happens at night; hence the strategy of wrapping in newspaper. This is the second year in a row that we’ve done this and as far as I can tell, it works pretty well. The only problem is that I forget about them down there and they overripen sometimes. C’est la vie. So, I threw out about 9 tomatoes and about 4 pounds of Black Krim and Beefsteak remain. Now, what to do with them?
These tomatoes ripened nicely, but they did acquire wrinkly skin.
Inspiration can strike at any time. For instance, I finally got tired of looking at the huge black canning pot staring at me from behind my kitchen sink. What did we need to do to get rid of it, I asked T. He reminded me about the tomatoes ripening in the basement and said that once we canned them, we could give the pot back to its rightful owner, my mother-in-law. Not at all looking forward to canning at this time, I figured if I could use them all in one recipe that would be just as good.
Not up to the task of canning and knowing they’re not worthy of topping a fresh salad, I decided to try a tomato cobbler using a recipe from the Martha Stewart website. Like almost every recipe I reference, I adapted it a little. Here goes . . .
Prepping the tomatoes with salt, pepper, and cornstarch.
Ready to go into the oven.
Tomato Cobbler
Yum!
Well, I’m delighted by how this turned out! The comments on the MS website about the recipe were not exactly positive, but I really like how mine turned out. I can see how adding some basil, garlic, or oregano to the tomatoes or drizzling the cooked dish with high quality balsamic would kick it up a bit, but I like to think that my delicious Black Krim and Beefsteak tomatoes were the trick to making this dish so tasty. (What would life be without homegrown tomatoes?)
What sorts of recipes do you employ to “use up” your garden harvest?
~R
