Saturday, July 19, 2014

Pickled Green Tomatoes

I love our garden this year.  I started all of our tomato plans (17 of them!) by seed back in February.  They are all non GMO and only being sprayed/fertilized organically.  Unfortunately, my large bonnie best tomatoes got a fungus this year that was making the tomatoes become damaged on the vine when they turned red.  I've been treating them and hoping that I can kill the fungus so the rest of our growing season will be okay.  Jury is still out on that!

I was not about to throw in the towel and lose all the tomatoes from 4 plants.  I saw on Facebook how someone made picked green tomatoes.  Genius!  When these tomatoes are green they are still healthy!  I cut off all the large green ones and decided to do some canning!


The recipe I followed came from Homesick Texan.  I pretty much followed his recipe exactly.


Ingredients:
2 pounds green tomatoes (about 4 or 5 depending on size), thinly sliced
1 jalapeño chile, stems removed, sliced
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon peppercorns
1 teaspoon celery seed
1 teaspoon dill seed
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup white vinegar
1 tablespoons sea salt

Special equipment
2 wide-mouth pint jars or 1 wide-mouth quart jar, sterilized (boil jars & lids for 10 minutes)



 Directions:
Evenly distribute the sliced green tomatoes, sliced jalapeños, cumin seeds, peppercorns, celery seed, dill seed and garlic into the jars. In a saucepan, bring to a boil 1 cup of water, the vinegar, and sea salt. Pour the boiling vinegar mixture into the jars leaving a bit of head space. Cover with lid and fasten with rings. Allow to cool and then refrigerate. They will be ready after 4 hours and will last for 1 month in the refrigerator.


This is my first batch.  I didn't pack the tomatoes in tight enough.  This was 2 very large green tomatoes.




My second batch turned out much better.  This was probably 2 large tomatoes and two smaller ones.  I really filled the jar up as much as a I could.




These are so delicious.  They are good on their own, just out of the jar.  For lunch the other day I put it on a turkey sandwich.  Yum!  These would be awesome on a burger.  Or laid out on a plate as an appetizer for a party.  I am sure using green cherry tomatoes would be great as well.  The vinegar taste is a little strong (which I like) but if you don't, just reduce the amount of vinegar a bit.


Enjoy!

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