Last Harvest

The Gaelic festival of Samhain (a.k.a. Halloween) traditionally marked the last harvest of the season and the beginning of our descent into the dark half of the year. And this year, it just so happened that I was gifted a massive bag of red and green tomatoes right before the weather turned cold last week.

My Granny gave me what was likely my last bag of fresh tomatoes until next summer, as I try to avoid winter tomatoes as much as possible (yuck!). I do have a tomato plant in my front yard filled with green ones, but I doubt they'll ever ripen. But Granny gave me more tomatoes than I knew what to do with before they turned bad. I fried a bunch of the green tomatoes in John P's Fried Okra, Tomatoes, and Tofu recipe last week. And I ate some red ones sliced with a little seasoned salt. A few went into salads, and I still had quite a haul.

So I found the last fresh tomato recipe I'll make this season to use 'em up — Sweet Garlic & Tomatoes with Pasta from Vegan's Daily Companion:

This simple, slow-simmered tomato sauce is made with lots of fresh garlic (2 whole heads!), about 10 diced tomatoes, olive oil, scallions, salt, and pepper. That's it. The recipe actually suggests serving it with farfelle (bowtie pasta), but I couldn't find that in whole wheat at Kroger. So I opted for whole wheat penne pasta instead. I loved this garlicky sauce, but it was a breath killer later.

On the side, I used some other fresh-from-the-garden produce. Granny had also given me a giant bag of fresh greens. And I mean, GIANT. I filled two soup pots with greens and slow-cooked 'em down crunk-style with turnips and my special seasonings (my recipe for Mess O' Greens with Turnips will be in my cookbook that's due out in April):

I'm not sure what type of greens these were (rape? mustard?), but they were delicious. And my greens recipe works with any type of leafy green, like collards, kale, turnip, mustard, or rape greens.

What have been your last harvest meals lately?