This isn’t really cooking the catch but… our swimming pool got struck by lightning 2 weeks ago, about blew it out of the ground [:0] Killed it dead and the deck around it, which was already in bad shape. 20 years old on both. It’s now time for it all to go. It’s a big scoundrel, 40’ long and 18’ wide, and a serious mess.
I’ve got an excavator and a dump truck coming in on Monday morning to make it all disappear and fill in the hole. Time to start over with a clean slate. But a lot of our herbs and vegetables are growing around the entire perimeter of it, right in the middle of growing season, and it will get trashed for sure, so we are picking everything we can by tomorrow, and relocating chives, oregano, cilantro, parsley, and I don’t know what all before then. Picking a lot of stuff still green, I’m thinking pickles with the green tomatoes? This is what we scavenged today…
Pickled/w hot pepper is one way , another way to extend usefulness is wrap in brown paper bag and store in cool dry dark space will usually keep them for several weeks,take a few out at a time and let ripen, chop and mix in with cabbage to extend amount of chow-chow with hot peppers , grand ma also had a recipe for green tomato jelly if you can find one…I know you don’t want to let them go to waste… Almost forgot:: I know you’ve tried chopped olives and cream cheese sandwiches ; cream cheeze with chopped green tomats mixed with pimento chopped and a little vinegar is great.
GREEN Tomatoes
Wrap each one in papertowels and place in a cooler. Put cooler in a cool place in the house or attic in WINTER. Take a few out periodically and let ripen in window and eat
“If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die, I want to go where they went.”
Will Rogers
One thing you can try is to make a pickle relish. Or pickle them whole naturally - try lacto-fermentation. You can search a bunch of recipes online, but we’ll make a brine w/ about 5 tablespoons pure salt (i.e. without any of the yucky additives you see in table salt these days) to a gallon of water. Just heat til dissolved, and let the brine go to room temp.
Then, in the bottom of a large, clean, glass jar, put in a few oak or grape leaves (to help keep crispness), and whatever pickling spices you like. Then, pack in a layer of tomatoes. Then, another layer of leaves/spices, and pack in another layer of toms. Repeat to about 1" below the jar rim, and pour in the brine - make sure you “tap” the jar, and fill all the gaps, and then top with some more spices and then a final layer of leaves - make sure the leaves cover the top and are under the brine - keep some space to the the top of the jar to allow for the fermentation.
We then cap the jar and put it in a cool, dark place (we just put them at the bottom of our cellar stairs. Every day we just “burp” the jar to let the excess gas escape. After about 5 - 7 days, you should see it a bit cloudy. You can give them a try - and then keep in the fridge after that.
We did this with an overabundance of jalepenos, and they lasted all winter long! Delish!
