Alternative Uses for Green Tomatoes—Pies!

During most of my past 15 years of serious gardening, I’ve been able to keep the tomatoes producing into late October/early November with only having to protect from frost a little.  Not this year.  We got slammed with a hard freeze in September.  It wasn’t even late September.  I’m still cranky about that.  My potato harvest might have been almost double. The tomato harvest certainly would have been double or better. 

So most years, we have several gallons of green tomatoes.  I normally let them ripen and then turn them into tomato sauce.  I think I only had a couple of gallons of green tomatoes, if that.  It wasn’t going to be worthwhile to turn them into sauce. 

About every 2-3 years, I can a batch of mincemeat for my husband using the recipe I got from his mother.  Nobody else in my immediate family likes it.  (Really, if you have apple or pumpkin pie or cheesecake, why would you even think of choosing mincemeat?!?!)  That recipe came from my mother-in-law, rather than from an officially approved canning resource like the Ball Blue Book or the Cooperative Extension.  Because it’s just a really good idea to stick with approved sources, the recipe I share below, very similar to what I make for my husband, comes from the University of Maine Cooperative Extension.

Mincemeat Pie Filling

4 quarts green tomatoes, cored and chopped

2 quarts tart apples, pared and chopped

1 orange, grated, peeled and chopped

2 pounds seedless raisins

4 cups brown sugar, packed

1 cup bottled lemon juice

½ cup apple cider vinegar (5% acidity)

2 tablespoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon ground cloves

½ teaspoon ground ginger

Mix all ingredients together and heat to boiling. Simmer until mixture thickens somewhat, about 35 – 40 minutes.

Pour boiling hot mixture into clean, hot pint or quart canning jars, leaving ½-inch headspace. Wipe jar rim. Apply dome lid and band and adjust band to fingertip-tight.

Process jars in a boiling water canner for 15 minutes, adjusting for altitude if necessary.

Now, you possibly recall that I absolutely loathe raisins.  There’s no way I will ever eat mincemeat pie made with green tomatoes and raisins.  Nor will any of the kids.  And yet, I have a few green tomatoes left and I came across a recipe for green tomato pie.  “They” said it tasted just like apple pie.  Naturally, I was skeptical, but I kinda wanted to make a pie.  And besides, most of the lab rats kids would be here for dinner. 

Green Tomato Pie

3 cups thinly sliced green tomatoes

1 ½ cups sugar

3 tablespoons instant tapioca

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Pinch salt

1 tablespoon butter

Pastry for a double-crust pie

1 egg white, beaten, optional

Sugar for dusting, optional

 

Preheat oven to 350°F.  In a medium bowl, combine the sugar, tapioca, cinnamon, and salt.  Add the tomatoes and vinegar and toss to coat.  Place the filling in a prepared pie plate.  Dot with butter.  Add top crust, seal edges, and flute.   

Brush egg white on crust and sprinkle with sugar.  Cover edges with foil to prevent over-browning.  Bake for about 60 minutes, or until tomatoes are tender.

Family reviews:  Serve this pie with vanilla ice cream and caramel syrup, and no one will notice the tomatoes.  However, without those accompaniments, this is what the kids had to say.  Aaron had to abstain; his blood sugars were high.   

Professor said it was acceptable but felt that mixing in slices of zucchini (like using the zucchini pie I tested on them last month) would make it better, kind of balance things out.  His wife, Belle, agreed with him. 

Ellie said it was ok.  The flavor was good, but the texture was off.  Buttercup agreed.  However, she also finished off the last three slices while she, KOTPE, and Aaron were out woodcutting.  (She can do that--she's still nursing the baby.)  Aaron was kinda disappointed that he didn't get to try out the pie. 

KOTPE also said it was ok, but less ok than Ellie’s and Buttercup’s oks from above.  He volunteered to peel real apples for the next “apple” pie. 

And without the ice cream and caramel sauce, I’m with KOTPE.  Especially since he agreed to peel apples for future pies.  Huge win for me!! 

So overall, I’d say that I would make this pie again, but only when things have truly totally collapsed.  There are a lot of other foods we'd rather make with tomatoes. 

Links to related posts:

Caramel Syrup