Saturday, October 9, 2010

Hip Deep in Green Tomatoes

Why does it seem like I work harder on my days off than I do at work? (And I work really really hard at work...)

I had to make a quick trip across the border to NH this morning. Shopping opportunities are limited up in our corner of the state, but goodies abound on the other side of the river. I'd no sooner crossed state lines when I saw blue lights flashing ahead - a cruiser and a big silver minivan were pulled over at the side of the road. I changed lanes to give them plenty of room, thinking the trooper had caught himself a speeder, when I saw a very large deer - a doe - lying dead at the edge of the road. The minivan had a serious punched-in look on its front bumper.
It's bow season for deer in Vermont - apparently NH has a minivan season.

(And remember this from last year? Yeah. Hunting season + Madman = that smell in the dryer area...)

We're madly putting the garden to bed (when Madman isn't sneaking through the woods with his bow) since they're predicting hard frosts for the next several nights. We've had a few light frosts that finished off the fragiles like beans and squash vines. Today he grabbed all the tomatoes and peppers out of the hoophouse, since it's going to be too cold for even that to offer protection. At the moment, every flat surface in the house is covered in tomatoes in all stages of ripeness.
Anyone got any good recipes for green tomatoes?

8 comments:

Joansie said...

I haven't had venison in years. As a young girl, I had so many uncles that there was always venison available.

Green tomatoes...hmmm, Amazon has a "green tomato" cookbook from Gardenway has one.

Wanderingcatstudio said...

My dad is preparing for his annual moose hunting trip and gave me a whack of last year's catch the other day - I have stew in the slow cooker right now - just not sure if it's venison or moose... which that man would learn to label!

Angie said...

How about green tomato ketchup? I haven't tried it but I do have green tomatoes on my counter tops....

http://southernfood.about.com/od/greentomatoes/r/bl30322v.htm

Dorothy said...

As a matter of fact, I do. It's a sweet green tomato relish and I love it. I'll email you the recipe. Unfortunately up here they just don't grow tomatoes that much because of the short growing season, so we don't even get the green ones. I may grow a bunch next year just to pick them green.

Erika said...

It's kinda always deer season around here. Fall is just the season when people feel free to admit that they have been deer hunting.

I don't mind too terribly, though. There are SO many of them, and it's all our fault. At this point, cars are their only real predator. That guy is lucky he wasn't driving anything smaller than a minivan!

Anonymous said...

Numerous deer dead by the side of the road here, too. Apparently the rut has begun.

Laurie said...

Does NH have a road kill list? You coulda bested Madman with bringing that home.

Bullwinkle said...

(snicker! at Laurie's comment. Excellent idea!)

Green tomato relish? I'm ready to put the tomatoes to bed (usually I can keep getting red ones till, uhm, November but this year we're having a stink bug invasion and I'd like to clean up early (encouraging the little buggers to go lay eggs with the neighbors who will gloat about tomatoes at Thanksgiving.)