Your Small Kitchen Garden

I hope you’re one of the many who harvest tomatoes from their small kitchen gardens. In past posts, I’ve talked about strategies for keeping your tomato plants tidy, for using compost when planting tomatoes, for watering tomatoes (and everything else in your garden), and for getting the nicest possible tomatoes from your plants.

As the growing season draws to a close, I want to make sure you haven’t missed out on the main reason tomatoes exist in the first place: tomato and mozzarella salad. Yes, the statement is over-the-top. But I’m confessing here that I grow tomatoes in my home kitchen garden specifically for tomato and mozzarella salad. If I had room for only one produce-growing container in my life, I’d grow a tomato plant so I could make this salad.

I wrote detailed, step-by-step instructions so anyone—even someone with limited cooking experience—could assemble their own bowl of the stuff, and eat themselves sick. A photo of the finished salad appears at the beginning of this post. Please: harvest tomatoes, then click that photo or click this link to review the instructions and use up a little produce from your small kitchen garden. Here are some other links to recipes you might like when you harvest tomatoes:

• 3 Top Tomato Recipes – Tomatoes are a great vegetable, and available all year around. We have some great ways to spice up the humble vegetable into a tasty snack or meal. These recipes are bought to you by helensrecipess Breakfast Tomato: Take a large tomato, …

• 1 Weekend, 2 Tomato Recipes – I had been inspired over the last couple of weeks by various tomato recipes I had seen in various magazines and articles and had decided that this would be a good time to try some. (I don’t think my mom and Grandma didn’t know what they …

• Garden fresh tomato recipes – My tomatoes have just started to ripen so I haven’t had enough to do any major projects with like canning salsa or juice or sauce. I have had more than I usually keep around the house though! I created a couple new to me recipes to help …

• 5 Great Tomato Recipes – It seems that lately I’ve heard nothing but “my garden is overflowing with tomatoes” comments, not to mention that the most beautiful, juicy tomatoes have been showing up at my local farmer’s market. Here are five great (not the …

• 3 Awesome Tomato Recipes to Try – I LOVE tomatoes and am always looking for awesome tomato recipes to try. And it just so happens we got our first batch of homegrown tomatoes this week. I decided to share a few of my favorite tomato recipes and would love to hear of …

Harvest Tomatoes Green?

Few tomato-growers see all their tomatoes ripen before the growing season ends. When you survey your plants and see dozens of green tomatoes hanging on, it’s natural to want them all to come ripe before a killing frost. Sadly, with shorter days and colder nights, if they’re green on the first day of Autumn, they’ll likely be green at the first frost.

Any tomatoes showing pink have a great chance of turning red: pick them and put them indoors where you can monitor them. If you must pick tomatoes while they’re entirely green, you might get them to ripen by putting a bunch together in a paper bag along with an apple or two.

Here’s the rub: tomatoes that have matured in cool weather simply never ripen as nicely as those that mature in the heat of summer. Tomatoes that go green into a bag, and miraculously come out red are usually as appetizing as store-bought tomatoes… so what’s the point? I’ve made tomato salad with late-harvest tomatoes that ripened on the vine, and it has been disappointing. Any that I harvest between now and a killing frost are going to be cooked before I eat them.

Why not eat them Green?

It would take extraordinary culinary magic to get me to like fried green tomatoes, but enough people seem excited by them that I’d certainly give them a try if I hadn’t already. The one green tomato preparation I have enjoyed, is green tomato mincemeat. While there are plenty of other pie fillings I prefer, I’ve eaten and enjoyed green tomato mincemeat when that was the only dessert offered. If you happen to harvest tomatoes green and you can’t bear to compost them or feed them to your pigs, try the recipes here and you might come to enjoy having unripe tomatoes at the end of each growing season.

• Fried Green Tomatoes Recipe – Well Charlotte’s been busy putting together her recipes again so if you have a glut of green tomatoes this year, which is highly likely, why not try this recipe? Fried Green Tomatoes. 3 medium, firm green tomatoes …

• Fried Green Tomatoes – But healthier than Fried Green Tomatoes are:. Baked Green Tomatoes. Ingredients:. 4 large firm green tomatoes; salt and pepper; 1/2 cup brown sugar; 3/4 cup coarse buttery cracker crumbs; 4 tablespoons butter. Preparation: …

• 10 Ways To Use A Green Tomato – Long ago when everyone raised their own food there were a multitude of recipes for using up the very last vegetables in the garden before frost. When frost was looming grandmother would pick the tomatoes regardless of color and create magical relishes, side dishes, and even dessert!

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