When winter comes too soon

It happens every year. Winter comes too soon. I am never really ready to surrender my garden, I retreat under duress. Every year I spend one evening ruefully bringing in all the green tomatoes one step ahead of a forecasted killing frost.

gr cherry tomatoesOne family can only eat so many delicious fried green tomatoes, and it’s really hard to fry cherry tomatoes. But I hate wasting what I watched grow, so I’ve found a use for those little green garden babies.

I was given a Martha Stewart cookbook that has a really good recipe for tomato relish, and I tweaked started gr tomato chutneyit to my tastes.

How I made the relish:

I take all the sad little cherry tomatoes that are not quite ripe and dice them. I add diced garlic, ginger, onions and bell pepper.

started gr tomato chutneyTo this I add cider vinegar, salt, brown sugar, mustard and some water.
Then I boil it down until the all the ingredients are soft enough to be fully mixed – cooking gr tomato chutneysometimes this means I add more water as necessary. Easy peasy. And yummy.

I’ve never canned it , there is never enough to bother. I just pop it in the fridge and use it up over the last month of the grilling season.

Keep the relish basics intact – vinegar and salt and sugar – then taste as you go and adjust as it suits your family’s preferences. Word of warning, use only the little tomatoes that had a chance of ripening; using the very small ones tends to make the relish bitter.