Rozanne Hall’s green tomato mince filling and crumb topping recipes
Comments(19) 
For the past few weeks I have been having interesting email conversations with Rozanne Hall from America.
Rozanne was a war baby born in the UK. Her father was a Canadian Army engineer serving in England and the continent who met her mother in Surrey, who was from Cork, Ireland. Rozanne grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia and has lived in Oregon, near the California border for over 25 years.
Rozanne and her husband had a large garden in their Oregon home for years and now have a new (hobby) hay ranch where they have cattle, horses and chickens. Rozanne wrote,
“I love making lots of things – seedless blackberry jam, chili sauce, mince filling from green tomatoes, pickled beets, to name a few.”
With a large harvest of green tomatoes I was very interested in the green tomato mince filling.
Rozanne explained that this is a sweet filling.
“This filling can be used in cookies or squares or just served warm over ice cream, but I personally mainly use it in pie. My husband loves it for Thanksgiving or Christmas especially, and my daughter-in-law just requested it for her birthday next week”.
Rozanne generously agreed to share her recipes and I have put the American/European coversions below.
Rozanne Hall’s mince filling recipe
(sometimes called mincemeat still even if there is no meat)
Mix together:
6 cups chopped, peeled apples
6 cups chopped green tomatoes (don’t peel)
Add:
4 cups light brown sugar
1 and 1/4 cups cider vinegar
2 cups golden raisins (regular ok)
3 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
“Bring gradually to a boil, in a large pot, and simmer for three hours, stirring often. Add 1/2 cup butter and mix well. Then put in jars and process if you wish for 25 minutes. (I assume you don’t need directions for that part.) I usually put in pint jars, not quite full, and freeze, since I have freezer space and I don’t make a huge amount of this. It makes about 5 pints. Each pint is enough for an 8 inch pie. I usually just use a single crust and put my crumb topping on top.
Sometimes I chop the tomatoes, even the apples, when I have them, but no time, and freeze the chopped products and later thaw them out and make the recipe.”
The crumb topping sounds delicious too. Here is the recipe.
Rozanne Hall’s crumb topping recipe
Blend with fork:
1 cup soft butter or margarine
2 cups flour
Add:
2/3 cup coconut
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
“Use to cover thickened pie filling in an unbaked pie crust and bake at 425 degrees for at least 20 minutes. You can use over any cut up fruit with no crust if you wish.
I usually double this and keep it in a ziplock bag in the freezer so I always have some on hand.”
Approximate conversions American/European
Quarter cup = 4 tablespoons/2 fl oz/55ml
One and a quarter cups = half a pint/10 fl oz/290ml
One cup = 225ml/8fl oz
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We have apples, we have green tomatoes – what a perfect recipe for this time of year! Thank you Fiona and thank you Rozanne.
In fact, I think autumn is when it feels natural to get down to baking and cooking. All those lovely ingredients – nuts and fruits. Things to eat when the nights start to draw in (the hens are going to bed at 5.45pm!!!!!) and things for the store cupboard and to share with friends.
Thanks Rozanne and Fiona, but used up my green tomatoes making fried green tomatoes.
Hi Rozanne – thank you very much for converting Fiona to the joys of Green Tomatoes! I spent three months in California in the days before I met the Cottage Smallholder herself, and there I was introduced to G.T.
Prior to that I had been always told that they were poisonous, and perhaps they are if eaten raw. I come from County Cork, where the only greens we consumed were cabbage and spring onion shoots
The first time I was offered a pepper stuffed with the dreaded GT in CA, I did not know what the filling was, merely that it tasted scrumptious. Can you imagine being told that the tasty morsel you have just consumed was belly of King Cobra? Well, that was akin to my reaction. But, as nobody at the party was dropping dead from GT OD, I tried some more and grew to love the flavor.
Many thanks and looking forward to hearing more “weird American recipes!”
I never made it as far north as Orgeon – only got as far as Russian River, but a visit to your neck of the woods is definitley on my list of Things To Do Before I Die.
Hi Celia,
I totally agree. Immediately the nights start to draw in I want to be making preserves and wonderful suppers and more!
We were talking about Rozanne’s recipe at work today. On this building site, I’m the only woman. Quite a few asked me to write down the address of this site. They grow the tomatoes, they were determined to cook the green tomato mince.
Hi Pat,
Over in our UK cottage we only heard about fried green tomatoes when the famous movie hit our screens – many yeas ago and we still didn’t know what to do with them!
Hi Danny,
You never told me about eating cobra! The green tomatoes must have made it palatable
Fiona, Take your tomatoes and slice them, kinda chunky. Then I dip in flour then egg and then in polenta(the closest we have to cornmeal over here) and then fry in a nonstick pan with a bit of olive oil. If you want the really traditional ones then it must be bacon drippings you fry them in. YUMMY!!! Turn ever so often so they don’t burn. They are done when the outside is crispy and the inside tomato part is soft.
Thanks Pat, for the fried green tomatoes rceipe. They sound great!
Here in Oregon we need recipes for green tomatoes! I plan to try the mincemeat recipe later this week. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Sarah,
Rozanne lives in Oregon!
The mincemeat is delicious. I do hope that it works well for you too.
[...] My sister-in-law Liz recently did an amazing post on quince jelly where she was able to make contact with a delightful woman in England who does lots of wonderful recipes and is quite self sufficient with her gardening. Well, Rozanne happened to notice quite a few people wanted to know what to do with their green tomatos. She made the comment with the English Lady about green tomatoes and how she uses them for minced meat pie filling and also told her about her wonderful crumb topping. Well the lady thought that was worth sharing with all her friends in England and then she blogged Rozannes recipe. [...]
What with all the green tomatoes this year, I’m definitely trying this recipe…. sounds yummy. Not quite sure what is involved in the 25 minute processing stage so I guess I’ll just put it in the jars once they’ve been sterilised and see what happens.
We have lots of green tomatoes and apples so this sounds great. Can you use it right away or does it have to be left to mature for a bit?
Hi Sue
Hope that it works for you!
Hi Jackie
I reckon that it can be used immediately as Rosane didn;t say that it needed to mature.
Thank you! I made some yesterday and it is now sitting in the freezer waiting to be made into delicious pies at some point nearer Christmas. It smells lovely!
Week off coming up, lots of apples & green tomatoes probably won’t ripen any more now so thought I would try this – I know from reading other pages & comments that there have been several good sites mentioned for converting American measures to English but couldn’t put my hand to them & so googled for one – found Delia online quite good for general but the one below had everything from this recipe (except the tomatoes didn’t specify green)so I thought I’d share it even if it’s been mentioned before. (Probably a dozen times!)I don’t know how to link so I’ll just write it (really must come into the 21st Century sometime). onlineconversion.com
Looking forward to trying this. Thank you for another delicious sounding recipe – am just off to try the spicy parsnip soup.
[...] Rozanne Hall’s Mince Filling Recipe: (sometimes called mincemeat still even if there is no meat) This filling can be used in cookies or squares or just served warm over ice cream, but I personally mainly use it in pie. My husband loves it for Thanksgiving or Christmas especially, and my daughter-in-law just requested it for her birthday next week. Recipe found at The Cottage Smallholder. [...]
It never ceases to amaze me how small the world is. Here I am sitting at my laptop in England where I now live, reading an English Blog about a green tomato recipe from Oregon–Southern Oregon no less.
I was born and raised in southern Oregon. We lived on a small farm just outside of Phoenix. Later we moved to Jacksonville, an old gold rush boom town.
Next year I will be having a garden and will put in some tomatoe plants so this recipe will come in handy. My father was from South Carolina so all of our green tomatoes were used for making Fried Green Tomatoes. If you plan to try Fried Green Tomatoes fried in bacon drippings, be sure to use smoked streaky bacon. The flavor is wonderful.
Hello there! I am new to this cooking lark and really can not find anywhere that converts the cup measurement to weight in ounces… I have all the ingedients ready for the green tomato mince filling and just want to get cracking with it…. the conversion at the end of the recipe is one cup = 8fl oz ?? help I am confused……Valerie
Hi Valerie – We bought a set of American cup measuring thingys but here is a good site for getting your conversions right:
Thanks Danny thats great….I have printed the conversions from the site and I am ready to cook… heres hoping! Valerie