The frost doth cometh! Don’t worry, I will not try to speak like that through a whole post.
Anyway, the frost came before I was ready, as it does every year. I didn’t manage to get any of my plants in, except my calamondin orange. You can see what takes priority at my house.
I have several plants that seem fine, but my canna lilies were looking pretty sad.
I’m hopeful they will survive, but at least I improved on my response time this year. Last year’s cannas were out way too long before I thought about it, and there wasn’t any chance of saving them.
I’m bringing in all the other plants in too, but since I can’t bring in the tomatoes, I’m stuck figuring out another option.
Honestly, 15 – 20 lbs of fried green tomatoes sounds like tons of work, and I’m not even sure if the rest of my family likes them.
Thankfully, I canned tomato soup starter last week for the 1st time ever, and that has opened up a whole new world for me.
I always thought canning would be so much extra work that I would hate it. What I discovered was that you do the work once and have several easy and less expensive meals out of it all. The canner is a bit of an investment, but they last a long time from what I hear. I got a good deal on mine because I bought it off-season.
The canning jars can be used over and over too, so once you have collection you are basically just buying lids and occasionally new rings. The amount of fridge and freezer space you save when you can is impressive too!
So I looked to see if there was anything I could do with the green tomatoes I was about to lose, and Salsa Verde came to the rescue. I do tend to use red salsa more often, but I like to change up our menu so it doesn’t get stale.
Chicken tacos are my favorite way to eat salsa verde as of now, but I am open to suggestions since it looks like I’ll have a good bit!
It’s an inexpensive way to keep our condiments options open, and, hopefully, I can season it to our liking.
I will say I “did in” our 7 year old roaster. So if you have a cheap teflon roaster that has seen better days, you may want to use a different method of making your tomato products.
I could have roasted them in the oven and put them in a pot for the rest of the process. That would have saved my roaster for maybe another year, but a roaster is such an efficient way to make tomato products.
Since tomatoes are my most successful garden harvest most years, I’ve decided to upgrade my roaster to one with a removable pan.
It’s bigger, and I’m excited for easier clean-up, and I’m hoping it has a stronger finish on the cooking surface.
I now know not to cook tomato products back to back in the roaster, as this is very hard on the finish. I’ll be cooking non-acidic meals in between sauce and salsa making in the future, in order to get the very best longevity out of my beautiful new roaster.
What’s your favorite way to use green tomatoes? What are your “go to” meals that use salsa verde?
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