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Monday, December 5, 2011

What to Do with 10 Pounds of Green Tomatoes

This past spring, my boyfriend and I planted a tomato plant in the front yard. We don't know the first thing about gardening. The plant was so small and adorable when we bought it at Home Depot, so we just planted it in a landscaped area in our front yard next to a few patches of monkey grass and some sticker bushes.

I was amazed this summer when the plant started to grow. It produced three whole red tomatoes! That's more produce than I've ever grown before. But then the plant turned kinda yellow, and I was pretty sure it was dying. I never water my plants. It's just not a priority for me, and when they die, I just shrug it off. But for some reason, I didn't want to see this tomato plant die, so I started watering it regularly, along with the habanero plant we planted beside it.

By September, the tomato plant still wasn't doing anything. No more tomatoes. And then suddenly, out of nowhere, it just started growing. It got so big that it outgrew it's stake and turned into a giant tentacled tomato monster, producing green tomatoes like crazy. But as the weather turned colder in early November, I knew the green tomatoes didn't stand a chance at turning red. So I harvested them, all 10 pounds of 'em.

Now, I love me some fried green tomatoes, but 10 pounds?! That's too many tomatoes to fry. So I decided to make Green Tomato Chutney!

I used this recipe from Shockingly Delicious. Diced green tomatoes are cooked down with golden raisins, brown sugar, allspice, ginger, onion, black pepper, and apple cider vinegar. I canned nine jars of this stuff! A few of my friends will definitely be getting jars for Christmas, but I'm keeping a few for myself.

I cracked open my first jar last week for an unconventional Indian breakfast — Onion Paranthas with Green Tomato Chutney:

The onion parantha recipe came from Happy Face Vegan. I've made them before, so I knew these onion-stuffed flatbreads would be perfect for topping with the savory-sweet chutney. Each day last week at breakfast, I had a couple of paranthas with chutney and a slice of veggie bacon.

Sure, it would have been nice to get more red tomatoes from the plant. But I'm really just happy I managed to grow anything at all. Maybe I'll even try again next year.

12 comments:

  1. Ha, ha, that sounds exactly like me and my chickpea plants. Except for...I had three chickpeas and that was the end of the story.

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  2. watering plants isn't a priority for you? so you are totally against anyone hurting animals, but you knowingly murder your plants? shame! :P still luvs ya

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  3. and oh yeah ~ the chutney does look and sound fab as well ;)

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  4. I need to get past my fear of canning/preserving food. I'm positively obsessive about food safety, and in the back of my mind, I have this huge fear of giving people food poisoning! I just got the ball complete book of canning/food preserving though, so I'm hoping to overcome my fear this summer. Do you have a pressure canner?

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  5. Yum!!! That looks delicious and how awesome they came from YOUR tomatoes!

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  6. I saw your blog post title in my Reader and thought "YES! Bianca fried 10 lbs. of green tomatoes!" Have to admit, I'm a little disappointed. ;)

    Seriously, the chutney looks incredible and a much more practical decision.

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  7. That's great! You should be very proud. :)

    We had one tomato plant in a Topsy Turvy on our deck but bugs and bad weather did it in. We were pretty disappointed.

    The chutney looks delicious.

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  8. Your tomato plant story is hilarious. I have a super black thumb, so I'm always happy to just keep a plant alive for a while, much less to actually produce vegetables. The chutney sounds delicious, especially with those parathas!

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  9. I'm with Lacey; I wish I could get over my fear of canning, but I just can't. I can freeze, though!

    And I have to be honest, this doesn't sound great, but the last picture does make it look pretty yummy.

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  10. My biggest question how to plant this in front of my kids? It is healthy but look less fun than a bunch of muffins they only want to eat :)

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