The Green Tomato Experiment

It's that time of year again when gardeners start to ponder what to do with all those green tomatoes.  Last year I posted about my experiments here.  The relish was a hit, and I made it again this year, and I have actually used the Green Tomato Cake recipe for some of my green peaches with great success.  Because I want to build a repertoire of recipes, I decided to try some new stuff.  With the plethora of green cherry and plum tomatoes, I made Dilled Green Tomatoes from my Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving book.  They have only been aging for a few weeks, so it's probably a bit premature for a taste test, although I'm salivating thinking about them right now.  I'll have to give you an update when I do taste them.  My other preserving experiment came to me via this post: 

http://my5acredream.blogspot.com/2011/11/canned-green-tomatoes-for-frying.html

Leigh decided to can her green tomatoes for frying at a later time.  Now, raise your hand if you love yourself some fried green tomatoes.  My hand is totalling waving in the air!  I didn't can mine, although I would in the future depending on how she says her turn out.  I decided to slice and freeze mine.  I sliced them on my mandolin about a 1/4 inch thick and froze them in a single layer on parchment paper.  I also diced up the shoulder like so

and froze the pieces in a single layer as well.  Once frozen, everything was put in freezer containers.  The diced tomatoes will be used in the Green Tomato Cake recipe at some point. 

You may wonder if my experiment worked, and I, too, wondered.  So, last night, with the last fresh green tomato I had and some frozen slices, I did a controlled experiment.  I did not defrost the frozen tomatoes, but breaded them straight from the freezer and put them immediately in the pan.  I breaded the fresh tomatoes with the same breading.  The frozen ones looked and tasted exactly like the fresh ones.

Yippee skippee.  Now, I can have fried green tomatoes all winter long.