So picture, if you will, Dustin and I being night owls as usual…talking, working on the computer, eating pumpkin ice cream. Then, suddenly realizing at 1:00 am that the temperature on our weather station says 32 degrees and we were supposed to have our first hard frost that night! Nooo, we’d forgotten!
Now picture Dustin in our garden (which is in our front yard, in a city neighborhood), at 1:15 am, in pajama pants, frantically picking green tomatoes and putting them into a mixing bowl using a bike light as a flashlight. Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure our neighbors already think we’re crazy. But this didn’t help.
I surveyed the damage this morning. Sure enough, the plants had frozen. And there were ripped out tomato vines and some trampled tomatoes as evidence of the aftermath of our 1 am harvest.
If anyone has any ideas on what to do with probably 200+ green tomatoes (cherry and large), I’d love to hear them!
If you put them in a box with a few red tomatoes, some of the green will continue to ripen!
That happened to me up in Rochester, New York. I picked them all, put them in a brown bag with other tomatoes and bananas. Some got more ripe, the others I cooked up. I think there are some recipes out there for green tomatoes. You could also try a salsa.
Those are excellent for pickles. In Europe it’s a well known winter delight. They are eaten with steak and mashed potatoes in eastern Europe, the French also have pickled tomatoes. But each country has its specific recipe. I can send you a Romanian recipe if you’d like.
I would love a recipe, if you wouldn’t mind!
I’ve never tried, but I’ve heard they make wonderful pickles. I think we got our first hard frost last night. There was definitely a “crust” on the ground this morning and some of the plants looked a bit browned.