“You say tomato, I say tomahto”
It’s a snowy January day and I’ve reached the point in winter when I start obsessing about tomatoes. My grandmother grew some of the best tomatoes going, so I’m beyond spoiled when it comes to expecting tomato perfection. This time of year, most of what I encounter at the market is a mealy imitation of a tomato that’s been grown in a hothouse or imported from far away. No flavor, pale in color, a sorry excuse taking up space in the produce department.
I once read that someone said that tomatoes were captured sunshine. I agree. Nothing says summer like a perfectly ripe homegrown tomato, sliced thick and sprinkled with some salt and pepper. I can and have made a meal from sliced tomatoes and they’re a staple at almost every summer meal we have. For lunch, nothing beats a BLT with Duke’s mayonnaise and Lay’s potato chips. When we lived in Chicago, one Green City Farmer’s Market vendor introduced me to the Early Girl variety because it was a tomato that we could expect earlier in the year that far north. As the season goes on, I move from one variety to the next as I eat my way through a summer of tomatoes.
Everything comes to an end and even the best home gardener gets stuck with some green tomatoes that just refuse to ripen. This past summer, a family member abandoned a big grocery sack full of green tomatoes at my front door. I took one look at the amount of tomatoes and thought that there was no way that John and I could eat that many fried green tomatoes without having to book heart-bypass surgery in advance. Being wasteful doesn’t sit right with me, so I had to figure out how to transform a mess of green tomatoes into something healthy that we would both eat.
That night I waded through my results from searching “green tomato recipes.” Chutney? Nah. Relish? John wouldn’t eat it. Pickled green tomatoes? Ditto. Green tomato ketchup? Wha the wha?
And then, the next click gave me Green Tomato Salsa Verde. Yes, yes, yes. It looked easy, was freezable and certainly would take care of the whole sack of green tomatoes in one fell swoop. I tweaked the recipe by adding more jalapeño peppers and an additional serrano chille pepper.
The results were awesome. Delicious with tortilla chips and perfect on fish tacos. I made the mistake of giving away one of my four jars, which is exactly the jar I wish I could pluck out of my freezer on a day like this to take me back to summertime, if only for the time it took to demolish a bag of tortilla chips.
Green Tomato Salsa Verde by Amy Knebel