When life hands you green tomatoes...

Ok I know its been awhile....I was so angry at the weather not assisting in this whole experiment I call a "garden".  I wanted to punish something and because I have no power to make the sun shine I decided I would punish the blog...silly right??!!?  So lets reflect on the amazingness of this year....

Lessons Learned:
-Just buy plants...don't grow from seed...you need counter space more then a million seedlings....
-The raised bed farthest to the right gets the least amount of sun...plan accordingly.
-Tomato plants get HUGE soooo don't plant bush beans behind them....
-Plant the tomatoes towards the back so you can plant other things in the front...
-buying plants via the mail doesn't work out...use saturday market instead.
-when using water walls for tomatoes put the cage around first then slide the water wall around that.


Okay so for year one we actually did okay...got a bunch of tomatoes (not enough to can sadly) but did find this option and let me just say "YUM!"...slow roasted tomatoes

Though we ended up with about 1 billion green tomatoes....so I searched the web and found the answer! It was simple, delish and uses green tomatoes.  I doubled it and ended up with ten 12 oz jars.


Green Tomato Enchilada Sauce

Combine the following:

5 cups of chopped green tomatoes
1 1/2 cups seeded, chopped long green chiles
1/2 cup seeded finely chopped jalapenos
4 cups chopped onions
1 cup bottled lemon juice
6 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tbsp. ground cumin
3 tbsp. oregano leaves (I used 1 1/2 tbsp. of ground mexican oregano)
1 tbsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper

Put it in a big sauce pan bring to a boil.  Stir frequently and once it begins to boil, then reduce head and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
 

I then added 1/2 cup chopped cilantro and used my immersion blender to puree the sauce.

Ladle the hot salsa into your jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.  Process in a boiling water canner for 15 minutes and you are good to go! 










Now enjoy!

 

I plan on making this a couple more times...we have that many green tomatoes!  Oy.  More experienced canners out there could you substitute lime juice for the lemon??  I think that would be more authentic though with the whole acid level issue involved in canning I didn't want to play around with the recipe too much.


Also just got my winter garden in so plan on hearing more about "lessons learned".

Lacy

* Just did some research and via the powers of the internet I have concluded that you could use lime juice which I think would taste more authentic.  I am going to use limes for the next batch so I will update on the taste...