tomato jam (more like chutney)

I have to admit, I’m a little disappointed with the amount of tomatoes in my garden that are still green. It’s September 27th and my tomatoes, despite a few, could be mistaken for one of the green variety yet they are supposed to be red or orange. However, I did manage to harvest some red Roma and orange Heirlooms and they are beautiful.

I was wondering what to do with them and I knew I didn’t want to go the traditional route, ie: slice them up, throw some salt and pepper, a little olive oil and just eat them or make tomato sauce. I wanted to think outside the box a little and then David mentioned I should make tomato jam and that is what I did yesterday. Despite being was weary about how it would actually taste, to my surprise it turned out delicious!

I adapted my recipe from one I found in the NY Times and from one I found on the blog Sassy Radish. Here is what I ended up doing:

I used about two pounds of various tomatoes.

Then I began by removing the skins from each tomato but take it from me, don’t do it with a vegetable peeler. Did you know there is actually a specific technique for removing tomatoes skins? I didn’t until David walked in the kitchen and saw my messy attempt at peeling them and chuckled when asking me what I was doing.

“Removing the skins” I said.

“You know there is an easier, not to mention cleaner way of doing that, right? He replied

“Oh” was all I said in return.

After he explained said technique I decided I would just continue doing it my way telling him I wanted to feel rustic when in reality, I was already on the last tomato and it seemed a bit of a pain to boil a pot of water, cut an X in the bottom of the last tomato, place it in the boiling water, and then effortlessly pull the skin off.

After I peeled all the tomatoes I placed them into a pot and added the following:

1 green apple, peeled and chopped up

1/2 chopped onion

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup cane sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. coriander

dash of cumin

Juice of half a lemon

Put all ingredients into a pot and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and let ingredients simmer for about 3 hours.

This morning I had breakfast