Another tasty way to use those green tomatoes

On a recent warm fall day, I found time to pull up my tomato plants, ending a year of so-so gardening. The plants, as usual, were loaded with green tomatoes.

Taking care to wrap the tomatoes in paper will allow you to enjoy fresh ripe tomatoes over the holidays and even into January.

Many people enjoy eating fried green tomatoes, but for those of you who prefer your tomatoes red, there are many means of storing the harvested tomatoes until they turn color.

Methods of saving the tomatoes vary from pulling up the plants and hanging them upside down in the basement to covering them individually with newspaper or towels and storing them in a cardboard box in a cool, dry place. Some growers will leave about a half inch of vine on their tomatoes to aid with ripening.

Green cherry tomatoes can even be pickled as dill pickles or pickle relish.

I normally place a large dishpan of the green tomatoes in the garage and try to ripen them that way. A few will ripen, but invariably I end up throwing the majority of them in the garbage can.

This year I felt like experimenting with some of the tomatoes by making green tomato jam. Complicated recipes for the jam can be found online, but the following recipe was simple and proved to be great-tasting. The finished product looks and tastes like berry jam.  

Green Tomato Jam

4 cups ground up green tomatoes

4 cups white sugar

1 large pkg. raspberry Jello (may use sugar-free)

Add tomatoes and sugar in large pan. Boil till thick, add Jello and seal in jars. You may process 10 minutes in a boiling water bath.

Next time, I think I'll try green tomato salsa.