Tomolives, Pickled Green Tomatoes, or “What to do with excess veggies”

Late last summer, I had a bid of a personal riddle:

1. I hate waste.
2. Growing things in a garden has been a battle for each veggie produced.
3. Somehow I had a glut of green cherry tomatoes as I was about to clear a bed in order to plant fall crops.

And in my typical fashion, I rummaged around the internet until I came up with an answer. Only this time it was a home-run of a solution.

I searched under “what to do with green tomatoes” for, seriously, hours. I stumbled into a webpage about something called “tomolives” or small green tomatoes that are brine pickled, much like olives. A quick search on “tomolive recipe” yielded a recipe. It looked simple, I had all the ingredients, and PLENTY of tomatoes, so if it was a failure, I was ok.

The  results?
Did I mention the “out of the park” part yet?

So I decided to plant a few more. And much like rabbit math, a “few” more ended yielding far more than I need. Nice problem, now that I have a trade-able commodity (tomolives) to make from them.

Interesting (to me) side note. When suckering tomatoes (basically pruning them to make the plant more manageable and improve yield), I found that if I take a suckered off branch, or even a leaf, and place it into rich, moist soil, and be sure to water it, I end up with yet another plant, this one being a clone of the original plant. In this manner I’ve actually perpetuated a few select tomato plants for over a year.

Today was my first “summer” picking of the tomatoes, though in truth, we’ve been eating tomatoes for about two months, leftovers from plants that I nursed through the winter. Not a lot, but enough to make us miss the full-blown production we will soon have.

So here is the webpage where I found the recipe.

And here is the recipe.

Pickled Green Tomatoes
Adapted from David Lebovitz, Michael Ruhlman and Michael Symon’s pickle recipes
Makes four pints or two quarts of pickles

2 qt cherry tomatoes or about 6-8 full size tomatoes – firm and very green
2.5 c water
2.5 c white vinegar

3 T kosher salt
3 T sugar
4 garlic cloves, peeled
4 T coriander seed
4 T yellow mustard seed
4 T black peppercorns
4 bay leaves
4 small red chiles, optional

(T=tablespoon, t = teaspoon)

 

• Bring water, vinegar, salt and sugar plus the garlic clove to boil in a non-reactive saucepan. Boil 5 minutes.
• Poke a hole with a toothpick, knife blade or skewer in each of the cherry tomatoes.Quarter the whole tomatoes.
• Pack into sterilized jars.
• Add 1 T each of the seeds, 1 bay leaf and one chile to each pint jar. Double the quantities if you are using quarts.
• Pour the hot brine over the tomatoes.
• Cover and allow to cool.
• Refrigerate for a week before sampling.

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If you want to process it for long-term storage, Ball states 10 minutes in a boiling water bath. I opt to not process, as the little suckers don’t last long, AND I have a line of folks waiting for more. It seems that that tomolives make the perfect garnish for a dirty martini, and the hard-core martini drinkers like some of the juice added as well.  So it seems my tomolives are a great barter item. (Joe, I liked that  deer bacon….*hint hint*)

I’ve also found that any vegetable does well in this brine/spice mix. And since I do not process it, all the veggies I’ve used so far haven’t ended up soft or mushy.