green tomatoes

I was recently visiting family in the Northeast where they have been hit badly by the tomato blight. All over the area farmers and home growers are ripping out plants and throwing them away because of the blight. Although cherry tomatoes and plum tomatoes seem to hold up better they are certainly not immune.

When I went with my sister-in-law to her beautiful community garden plot everything appeared to be growing well. The garden was lush, greenly fragrant and productive, even the tomatoes looked good at first glance. But the blight had obviously damaged the plants and the fruit. As she began to pull out the plants I realized that many of the fruits were still unscathed. Remembering the years we lived in Vermont (which Shep Ogden, owner of Cook's Garden, jokingly says should be referred to as the Green Tomato State) I knew that there was a lot we could do with the fruit. My sister-in-law agreed to give it a whirl and we began to hunt for all of the un-blighted fruit we could find.

After the patch was cleared and we headed back to the house with bags full of green tomatoes we began to search for recipes. There are so many things you can make with green tomatoes; more than just the familiar fried green tomatoes. We usually don't use them because we are so conditioned to eating them when they are fully ripe. According to the USDA the nutritional profile of green and red tomatoes is almost the same. Green tomatoes have twice the vitamin C, more vitamin K, and more calcium. Red tomatoes have more vitamin A, E, and potassium. Apparently they have the same amount of lycopene and it is believed that the chlorophyll in the green tomatoes hides the red pigment which indicates a lycopene-rich food.

Our cooking and canning foray took two days (in part because we also canned zucchini, but that's another story) and we made green tomato cake, green tomato pickles, green tomato salsa, and some really fabulous green tomato relish. Now when their family sits down in the middle of those cold New England winters they'll still be able to have a jar of summer goodness on the table to enjoy.

Green tomatoes are versatile and can be made into pie (it's delicious, trust me), pasta sauce, and all manner of preserved goods. While I'm not sure if the farmers in those states affected by the blight will be able to harvest and sell their green tomatoes I sure hope they do. And I hope that people realize just how tasty green tomatoes are. Who knows, it might start a new demand for green tomatoes.

photo courtesy of wikimedia.commons.org

natural icing

A recent question on a forum that I belong to concerned what to use for icing/frosting colors so as to avoid artificial colors which are not good for you.

We use India Tree natural vegetable coloring. According to the website it's a concentrated vegetable liquid colorant. I do know that it only takes a tiny bit to color a bowl of frosting. The set is sold in a three pack of primary colors which can be combined to make any color you want.

If you want to switch away from petrochemical colorants this is a good alternative.

carbonated water

In response to a recent post my Aunt wrote and asked, "What do you advise about carbonated water? I prepare a drink for treats--carbonated water over ice cubes topped off with a splash of home brewed mint extract (made by filling a bottle with sprigs of fresh mint, filling with boiling water, letting it stand until it all cools down, fishing out the then wilted mint leaves, topping off the extract bottle with cool water, covering and keeping it refrigerated), a splash of apple juice and a wedge of sliced lemon."

This sounds like a really tasty treat and a very healthy beverage choice as long as the apple juice is 100% juice with no high fructose corn syrup. I remember drinking a mint water/water/lemon concoction when I visited which was delicious and the apple juice sounds like a really nice touch. As soon as my mint, currently struggling in the Texas heat, gets big enough I'll have to start making my own mint extract to have on hand.

I did want to take this opportunity to explain the differences between the different types of carbonated waters out there. This explanation assumes that these are plain, unflavored versions of the different waters.

Seltzer water is simply water to which carbonation has been added. The carbonation is caused by adding pressurized carbon dioxide gas to the water. You can make your own seltzer water, very inexpensively, at home using a soda maker.

Club soda, sometimes also called soda water, is very similar to seltzer but frequently contains added sodium, either in the form of table salt, sodium citrate, sodium bicarbonate, potassium bicarbonate, potassium sulfate, or disodium phosphate. Sodium levels vary depending on the manufacturer. For anyone watching sodium intake it is important to read the label when purchasing this product.

Tonic water is also a carbonated beverage and usually has a slightly bitter taste. This is from the quinine used to flavor it. Quinine was believed to to be helpful in treating malaria but was so bitter that it could not be drunk by itself and was put into a "tonic". Apparently there is not enough quinine in tonic water to be medicinally effective. Most tonic waters are flavored with either lemon or lime and have sugar in them. The labels I saw indicated 80 calories and 21.6 g of sugar per 8 ounces making this not a good beverage choice for regular consumption.

If you have a healthy beverage recipe that you'd like to share please leave a message in the comments. It's always nice to try new flavors.

photo courtesy of freefoto.com