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| Photo taken from the Globe and Mail |
Paul’s been making this lively Plum and Green Olive salad lately, and I highly recommend it! Simple so that the clearly contrasting sweet, salty, and crunchy tastes stand out. We love Cerignola olives even more after having driven by Cerignola this summer on our way to Peschici.
If plums are a satisfying harvest treat (and yes they are!), so are green tomatoes, although it might have been even more satisfying if they’d all ripened. Since we had a bumper crop of still verdant globes, however, we’ve found some pleasing ways to use them up.
First, I sliced up a few and mixed them in with the apples I sliced into a pie, following a recommendation from my battered old Joy of Cooking. And, of course, a few got sliced into the frying pan to go alongside Sunday morning bacon ‘n’ eggs.
Then Paul made a so-good-it-couldn’t-possibly-be-as-healthy-as-promised Fish and Green Tomato Curry.
And, finally, I simmered 2.5 pounds of them, all chopped up, with chopped onion, brown sugar, vinegar, spices and raisins, the aromas dancing through the house, blending the heat of August fruits with the exotic warmth of ginger and cinnamon and mustard and chili peppers. All to trick our palates, this winter, into forgetting the cold and grey for the length of a meal. . .
Are you a green tomato fan? What are your favourite ways to use them up? Have you ever tried them in an apple pie? And what other early fall dishes have you been enjoying?
Would love to have Pater's recipe for fish and green tomato curry.
That salad sounds so different and the flavours must be divine together…
Enjoy your weekend. It has been so foggy here that it feels a bit spooky…on my walk to the breakwater it felt like I was on a moor in Scotland yesterday!
I'll see if I can talk him into sharing. 😉
We haven't had as much fog as you, although some nights the foghorns get going…
I'll second Leslie's request for the curry. I just harvested a whack of green tomatoes yesterday before pulling out the plants. Some will ripen, but others won't and I'd sooner use them green than have them spoil as they ripen.
Do you fry them green with your bacon and eggs with or without breading?
Such a timely post. The plum/olive salad looks delicious and so unique. It would be good for our Thanksgiving dinner, if I can still find some plums.
Let me know if you do try the salad–we love it! As for the green tomatoes with bacon and eggs, we just fry ours naked. No breading.
Sounds like you are eating well. I haven't grown any tomatoes for a couple of years – I never DID figure out what to do with the green ones:).
Paul had pots and pots of them this year. Fun!
I love making chutney and love even more eating it later in the winter by myself (it is an acquired taste) and feeling all very homesteady.
Enjoy your crop
You get more homesteady points if you actually canned yours in jars. I cheated and mine (a small batch) is in plastic containers in the freezer….Still, Yummy!
Love green tomatoes – fried in cornmeal or chutney (perfect on a cheese sandwich).
Yes! Perfect in a cheese sandwich. I put a dollop on top of a bowl of dal and basmati rice for a perfect lunch. Wishing now I'd made more…
I've never tried green tomatoes. I always just thought of them as unripe:). Our tomato crop was abysmal this year. I would love the curry recipe too.
Unripe the way green peppers are unripe…;-)
That salad looks delicious! I will have to try it one day. Not this year, I'm afraid, the plum season is almost over.
There were no green tomatoes this year. As my landlord keeps denying me access to my back garden, I couldn't grow anything out there. But good times will be back and then I'm going to try out all your recipes!
I do hope your tenancy issues get resolved soon. So stressful!
The plum/olive salad is a new direction for me and must-try, thanks! I like to make homemade catsup (or I guess chutney) like other commenters, and also a tomato bread pudding that was one of my mother's star dishes.
Your catsup and bread pudding (mmmm!) are made with red tomatoes, though, not green, am I right? Although I suppose they could both be made with green..
I love green tomatoes but haven't had any for a while as I haven't grown tomatoes for a while….. sigh. I grew up with them dipped in cornmeal and fried, but love them just fried plain as well, as well as preserved in chutney or catsup, and I have made green tomato catsup, not at all like the red stuff so it may be an acquired taste.
The salad looks delicious so I think it must be tried before the plums are gone.