A glut of green tomatoes

This year's tomato crop was late to get going, in spite of being planted out at the usual time. The first ripe tomato didn't appear until the end of August although I've enjoyed a steady stream of lovely home-grown fruit since then. However, with the days getting shorter and cooler, I couldn't put off the inevitable any longer and so decided to call it a day on this year's crop.

Before I could turn the plants onto the compost heap and use the soil from the pots to mulch the raised beds, I had to harvest the remaining fruit, which ranged widely in colour from green to red.

The full range of colour

...but mainly green!

After tidying up the garden I turned my attention to the tomato crop. The question was, what to do with the final harvest? I still have pots of Green Tomato Chutney from last year, and even a pot of Spiced Green Tomato Chutney from the year before, so this really wasn't an option. Instead I turned my attention to the internet in the search for recipes that use green tomatoes.

I soon learnt that, so long as you cook them for a good time, you can substitute red tomatoes for green ones in most things. I began with a batch of Green Tomato Dal.  This involved cooking a cup of red lentils in 5 cups of water for about 30 minutes. I then added 4 cups of diced tomatoes, ranging in colour from green to very pale orange; a chopped chilli; half a teaspoon each of ground fenugreek, ground coriander and ground cumin and cooked it all for a further 35 minutes.  I then seasoned it with salt, pepper and lime juice to taste before serving it with brown rice and steamed broccoli.

Riding on the back of that success I surveyed the contents of the fridge and store cupboard and realised I had the ingredients to make Ribolita - a very hearty Italian soup made from white beans, cabbage and tomatoes. I used a Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall recipe, substituting the 400g tin of tomatoes for the same amount of chopped fresh tomatoes - all at different stages of ripeness. This recipe calls for the soup to be cooked for an hour before the cabbage is added which gave plenty of time for the green tomatoes to soften into the soup. The result was one of the most delicious soups I've eaten and, with more cabbage in the fridge and still more tomatoes to use up, I think a second batch could be on the cards.

I've also been making Roasted Tomato Sauce which involves placing a layer of chopped onion on a baking tray and covering it with halved tomatoes, cut side up. Sprinkle the lot with chopped thyme, salt, pepper, a tiny bit of brown sugar, a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and some olive oil before cooking for about 45 minutes at 190C or gas mark 5. The addition of a bit of sugar and the balsamic vinegar means you can get away with mixing in a few green tomatoes. Once cooked, blitz with a blender and use in place of passata. It can also be frozen so that you can enjoy that lovely summery taste in mid-winter.

I am tempted to continue in my green tomato recipe quest but with a bathroom floor to seal and a pair of wool trousers to line, I should really turn my attention elsewhere. At least I'll get to enjoy a few lunches of Ribolita this week.

Door stops

Last autumn I gave the bathroom an overhaul (new bath panel, new floor, a lick of paint, new towels and bath mat, and a new shower curtain). With a slightly different colour scheme, a new door stop was needed. The one from the study was a perfect match and so got moved to the bathroom, which worked perfectly well for the first six months since the study door tends to be kept closed when I have the central heating on.

However, the advent of summer had the study door being propped open with nothing too attractive and a mini flood in the bathroom last month somewhat ruined the door stop there - I can't remember what I had stuffed it with but, oh my goodness, did it smell when it got wet!

Fortunately, a rifle through the materials box unearthed some more of the same fabric - off-cuts from making the Roman blind for the study - so I was in business for an afternoon of crafty activity with the monthly craft club gang.

Each door stop used a piece of fabric just smaller than a sheet of A3 paper, which was folded in half and sewn across one of the short sides and the long side to make a pouch.  I then sewed diagonally across each corner to make a sort of gusset to give the pouch a decent sized base. Into the pouch I poured 1.5kg of cheap rice before turning in a generous top hem, popping in a fabric handle, and sewing across the top.

The rice filled the pouch about two-thirds full so the remaining fabric and handle just folded over. The idea is that you can grab the handle to lift up the door stop to put it in place and the simple sewn seam at the top will be easy to unpick should the rice need topping up, or even emptying entirely for the fabric to be washed. Well, I guess there could well be another bathroom flood to contend with.

I repeated the process with a second piece of fabric to make another door stop for the study.

This was all done in a few hours, which left me with some time to kill at craft club. Although both door stops were nice they did feel a bit plain. I had been considering some sort of adornments but couldn't make up my mind before leaving for craft club so had brought nothing suitable with me. My friend very kindly came to my rescue, putting the button tin that she inherited from her Mother at my disposal. It was a treasure trove of buttons and fixings from the 1940s to about the 1970s. In the end I chose a set of ten coat buttons for the study door stop. They add a bit of weight to the top, enabling it top to flop over beautifully. They also hide a less than straight line of top stitching!

As for the bathroom door stop, the walls of the bathroom are painted white with bits of silver glitter embedded in the paint, so I couldn't resist a bit of 'bling'. I chose a sparkly buckle which I just slipped over the fabric handle.

All in all, a very successful afternoon's work!