Frosty Weather and Green Tomatoes

“God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are,so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.” 1 Corinthians 1:28 – 30

As I write this, we haven’t had our first frost yet. But it is coming and it will catch me by surprise like it does every year.

I watch my garden as it struggles to keep up with the changing temperatures. Some of my tender plants have already wilted and have been pulled up for the compost or burn pile. The hardier ones are still flourishing and will continue to do so until the winter sets in.

It always makes me sad to watch my tomato plants go through this change. They are the proud plants of my garden. They grow like crazy in the good times. They try to take over the entire garden, growing seven feet tall and spreading their limbs in every direction. They pay no attention to boundaries and spill over into the neighboring beds. They supply me with plenty of beautiful, shiny, red and orange tomatoes during the season.

Ann Kirsten

Then, the first frost arrives and the vibrant green vines instantly wither and turn black. It makes me so sad to see all the green tomatoes that didn’t get their chance to ripen before the cold weather destroyed their vines. What a waste. I always feel guilty, like I let the green ones down somehow. I should have planted earlier, or picked more often, or somehow saved them from the fate of the compost bin.

A few years ago I had so many large and perfect green tomatoes left over that I did some research. Do you know that you can make SO many things with green tomatoes? There are recipes galore out there, both sweet and savory.

Ann Kirsten

The first thing I made was green tomato and cheese muffins. I figured cheese could make anything taste better and would hide any unripe tomato flavor. Oh, my goodness! The resulting muffins were delicious! I raved about them here: Tomatoes Won’t Ripen? Make These Green Tomato Muffins!

The tomatoes mellowed into the most wonderful flavor. Added bonus: your kids will never know there are vegetables in their muffins. I promise you this is true. It’s not like those black bean or spinach brownies people talk about. Yuck. No, these were quite simply the best muffins I had ever tasted.

So this year I decided to try making something sweet with green tomatoes. I chose a bar recipe and once again I was impressed. After cooking, the tomatoes tasted like apples instead.

Ann Kirsten

Green Tomato Bars

2 cups green tomatoes, diced
1 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/3 cup butter, softened
3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup old fashioned oats
1/4 cup pecans or walnuts, chopped

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a small pot over medium heat, combine the tomatoes, brown sugar and lemon juice. Cook until the mixture has thickened a bit, about 20-25 minutes. You will be tempted to cook it longer because the tomatoes don’t break down at this point. Don’t worry, they soften in the oven.

In a bowl, combine the remaining ingredients and mix well.

Grease a 9×9 inch baking pan really well and press 2/3 of the mixture into the bottom, pour the tomato mixture on top of that and then top with the remaining oat mixture.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until light brown. Yum!

The beauty of cooking with green tomatoes is that they end up taking on the flavor of the other ingredients you’ve added. They lose all tomato taste. They turn into the yummiest and sweetest ingredient instead.

You can find green tomato recipes for relishes, chow-chows, pickles, pies, cakes, breads, muffins, casseroles, and so much more. There are enough recipes out there for you to use up all of your unripened tomatoes!

Today I added green tomatoes to my red and orange ones.

Ann Kirsten

I will slow roast them and make Tomato Confit (Recipe here at AllMomDoes: Easy Tomato Confit. I will probably blend the confit to make pasta sauce. After that, my next green tomato experiment will be relish. I can’t wait to make a sandwich with homemade green relish piled on top.

As you can see, those green tomatoes that I always viewed as sad and useless actually have great merit. How many other things (and people) have I viewed incorrectly?

Gentleness or meekness is talked about so many times in The Bible. Green tomatoes have a meek, gentle nature to them. Unlike their proud red brothers and sisters, they seem to have lost all hope of being called to use as they cling to frost-destroyed vines.

I love that I have found uses for them. Now, instead of feeling sorry for them, I actually look forward to having some green tomatoes left over at the end of the season.

As God often called the lowly and unqualified people to do His bidding, I am using the lowly green tomatoes in ways I never dreamed of before. And like those God used, they have risen to the tasks.