Recipe: Use those late-season green tomatoes in a casual fall meal
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Got green tomatoes? Roast them to make a delicious sauce. (Photos: Kathy Morrison) |
At my community garden, I’m usually one of the last gardeners to pull out their tomato plants. One reason is I typically have three or four cherry-tomato plants still producing, notably the unstoppable Juliet variety. That one will carry on until frost if I let it.
But another reason is I grow a lot of tomato plants, and a few are so pretty and green again by October that I hold off turning them into compost. Not all of these set new tomatoes, but this fall the continuing warm weather prompted several to do so, including my Big Beef and First Prize plants. But I knew I was kidding myself about seeing many more red full-size tomatoes the rest of the year. So I picked most of them last weekend and hunted for a new way to use green tomatoes.
Now, of course, the cooler nights and the smoky skies are shutting down tomato production anyway, as Debbie detailed in this week’s Garden Checklist .
In the past I’ve canned a lovely green tomato chutney and a spicy green tomato jam, but I didn’t want to get out the canning kettle this time. Instead I hit on the idea of making a roasted green tomato sauce. Was there such a thing? An Internet search turned up a few variations, notably one on Genius Kitchen which I used as inspiration to create the Italian-style sauce here.
The resulting sauce wasn’t as piquant as I feared it might be -- the long roasting time and the additional of roasted white onions mellowed the flavor. Basil from my still-producing plants plus garlic and red pepper flakes added depth.
I tossed the sauce with potato gnocchi and served it alongside chicken Italian sausages, with an Amador County sangiovese to drink. Delicious, and a nice change from red sauce.
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Roasted green tomato sauce
Makes enough for 6 side dish servings
Ingredients:
Extra virgin olive oil, for pan and for drizzling
3 pounds medium green (unripened) tomatoes, about 12
1 large white onion
Salt and freshly ground pepper
3 to 6 fresh garlic cloves (I used 6, but I love garlic)
24 basil leaves, plus more for garnish
⅛ teaspoon dried red pepper flakes
Prepared potato gnocchi, polenta, or pasta of your choice
Grated Parmesan cheese
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Garden Checklist for week of Feb. 9
Be careful walking or working in wet soil; it compacts easily.
* Keep the irrigation turned off; the ground is plenty wet with more rain on the way.
* February serves as a wake-up call to gardeners. This month, you can transplant or direct-seed several flowers, including snapdragon, candytuft, lilies, astilbe, larkspur, Shasta and painted daisies, stocks, bleeding heart and coral bells.
* In the vegetable garden, plant Jerusalem artichoke tubers, and strawberry and rhubarb roots.
* Transplant cabbage and its close cousins – broccoli, kale and cauliflower – as well as lettuce (both loose leaf and head).
* Indoors, start peppers, tomatoes and eggplant from seed.
* Plant artichokes, asparagus and horseradish from root divisions.
* Plant potatoes from tubers and onions from sets (small bulbs). The onions will sprout quickly and can be used as green onions in March.
* From seed, plant beets, chard, lettuce, mustard, peas, radishes and turnips.
* Annuals are showing up in nurseries, but wait until the weather warms up a bit before planting. Instead, set out flowering perennials such as columbine and delphinium.
* Plant summer-flowering bulbs including cannas, calla lilies and gladiolus.