A Green Tomato New Year's Eve Post

Let's see, what's the date? Yup, it's December 31st and once again my "volunteer" tomato plant is loaded with green tomatoes. It's downright embarrassing! Some of them are actually quite good-sized. Of course they're all green, but the silly thing is still putting out flowers and setting fruit.

The one on the right is almost two and a half inches in diameter!

Very hard to tell, but there's almost a dozen tomatoes in the photo above! The leaves do a good job of hiding them.

Talk about persistence....

I really shouldn't be surprised (other than by the sheer quantity of little green fruits this year) since the same thing has happened for the past five years. Sometimes I have green tomatoes into March!

Since there were so many green tomatoes this year, it set me off on a search for pickled green tomato recipes. (To be honest, it was my mother's message playing in the background saying "waste not, want not".) Well, the tomatoes, the message and Cathy Barrows's blog Mrs. Wheelbarrow's Kitchen. Emailed her for permission to post photos of her inspiring giardinier and received the go ahead. Can't wait to share this with you!

Photo by Cathy Barrows

A few weeks ago I ran across her post for "salad in a jar, giardiniera" and haven't been able to get it out of my mind! So easy to make (other than chopping veggies) and so delicious looking! I'm up for any kind of refrigerator pickling. Here's a shot of the final product.

Photo by Cathy Barrows

What can I say? Love at first bite? Wouldn't this be wonderful to give as a hostess gift or to friends around the holidays? Visit her blog for the recipe, it looks sooo easy!

Cathy is a co-founder of Charcutepalooza. Kim Foster of The Yummy Mummy is the other founder. It was a group focused on A Year of Meat (among other things), which I followed and thoroughly enjoyed during the last year. One of the things I came away from with, was how to focus and appreciate the ingredients and their origins. You don't just grab something at the big store's deli case, you get to see how the final product develops from it's origins. It's a way to develop a deeper understanding of what graces your table and the work involved in making it especially if done by hand with love and shared with friends.

In her November post, Cathy sums it all up quite simply with these words "We’ve come a long way. We’ve salted, brined, smoked, ground, stuffed, packed and stretched our way through parts of pork, slabs of beef, flocks of chickens, dozens of ducks and hundreds of feet...". Her blog is a pleasure to follow. I want to thank her for allowing me to show you her great photos and introduce you to her blog! Enjoy!