The Cottage Smallholder

Did this today – well impressed, it's quite a sweet chutney and I've messed with the original recipe a BIT, but it's worth a try.

Over the past couple of days I had roasted 3 trays of tomatoes in the oven, initially the aim was to do some semi dried tomatoes, but they weren't drying much. I'd chucked a chopped onion in with one tray, and a few garlic cloves with another.

The recipe required you to skin the toms, and I thought bo..ocks to that as they were cherry tomatoes, but I then spent a while picking out some of the curled up skins while it was bubbling away, so I might do it next time.

Anyway, the recipe..

2lb Tomatoes (skinned)

1 large onion (about 8oz) – peeled and chopped

8oz raisins or chopped dates (I used raisins)

8oz sugar

1pt malt vinegar

That's it really, stick them in a pan and bubble away for 2 hours, then pot up in sterilised jars. yummy

Cheers, Jan, another recipe filed away – you star!

I've got a load of green ones in the fruit bowl with the bananas and apples, and more on the sitting room window sill (which gets all the sun, all day…..when the sun actually shines, of course).  I vaguely recall reading somewhere about putting them in a bag with a banana though…does that actually work then?  I guess it must do, since you recommend it Janet!

Post edited 12:49 am – Fri 26-Aug-11 by Hattie

Yes, ripe bananas really work, as do ripe red eating apples. Last year I tested both on various varieties of tomatoes because someone on a US gardening forum said he used this method so he could use his tomatoes well into the winter. Mine all ripened eventually. I kept them in their green state for a long time by keeping them on a long piece of the stem of the plant.

Personally I love green tomatoes made into chutney or salsa. They are also good fried¦..you just have to divorce your mind from the thought od red ripe ones & think of them as another veg/fruit.  

Green tomato chutney we find needs to be left a good long time, at the very least 10 months if not a year and then it gets really nice and better the longer it is left.

We've had two cool boxes full of tomatoes now and I am still drying them as we love dried tomatoes but I think I will have dried enough soon. The red tomato chutney is beginning to look promising.