Green Tomato Harvest

My tomato season this year sucked.

It did so for the same reason our local apple, squash, corn, and everything else-growers had a bad season: too much water.  I planted six big boy red tomato plants in the spring and got precisely eight edible, ripe red tomatoes this summer.  Eight.

I also planted dill and cilantro which both died a watery death.

I admit I’m a bit of a craptastic gardener but that’s lame even for me.

On the upside my basil plant absolutely thrived.  Apparently those buggers are aquatic.  So soon, I will be doing a final harvest and making lots and lots of fresh pesto sauce.  Yummers.

The only thing that made my growing season worthwhile was today, when I harvested about four or five pounds worth of hard little green tomatoes before ripping the sad, waterlogged plants out and giving them the toss.

I made green tomato gazpacho (recipe courtesy of my guest-blogger, Jo) and Turkish green tomato soup.

The first year I did a green tomato harvest I went the traditional cinematic route and fried up a big plateful of fried green tomatoes.  Boy howdy, those things are nasty.  I’ve been making tasty soup ever since.

So – here we go…

Turkish Green Tomato Soup

3 lbs. of green tomatoes, cut into chunks.

Box of chicken broth.

8 oz. container of plain Greek yogurt.

Generous palm full of fresh dill.

Crumbled feta cheese.

Salt to taste.

Cover the green tomatoes in chicken broth and simmer until thoroughly soft, about twenty minutes.  Add yogurt, salt and dill and blenderize the crap out of things with an immersion blender.  Garnish with feta.

This soup can be served hot or cold and is tasty either way.  It doesn’t look that fantastic, like a big container of foamy green stuff – but here’s a picture.

 Next up…

Avocado and Green Tomato Gazpacho

3 medium-sized (3-inch diameter) green tomatoes, cored and diced

1 small (or half a medium) orange or yellow bell pepper, cored and minced

1 medium-sized (7-inch) cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced

A handful of flat-leaf parsley

A handful of cilantro

1 medium-sized ripe avocado, peeled, pitted and diced

1 medium clove garlic, minced or pressed

1/2 teaspoon salt (or more, to taste)

1 teaspoon ground cumin

2 to 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

1 teaspoon sugar or light-colored honey

1 cup cold water

Black pepper and cayenne to taste

Up to 4 tablespoons fresh lime juice (to taste)

Combine everything in a blender and hit “chop”.  Easy easy easy is part of what I really like about this recipe.  That and the fantastic taste.

It’s also really pretty… a bright green chunky soup with flecks of herbs floating around.