Sliced Green Tomato Pickles

Leave it to you elegant Erma, to have a gourmet recipe that really is cheap, cheap, cheap. And you would pass it off as “gourmet.”

Well, my Sliced Green Tomato Pickles are sort of in the same category. Today they are so different that people think they are special when the truth is that this old recipe came about as a way to salvage the last few green tomatoes when the killing frost came around. I think a version of this recipe was in one of the Little House books. An early frost came and there was still lots of green tomatoes left so Ma made Green Tomato Pickles.

Believe it or not, but I love to put these on Pinto Beans. Everybody in my family did.

Sliced Green Tomato Pickles:

7 ½ pounds green tomatoes (about 30 medium)
6 good sized onions
¾ cup pickling salt
1 tablespoon celery seed
1 tablespoon whole allspice
1 tablespoon mustard seed
1 tablespoon whole cloves
1 tablespoon dry mustard
1 tablespoon peppercorns
½ lemon
1 sweet red peppers
2 ½ cups brown sugar
3 cups white vinegar

Wash tomatoes well, cut off blossom ends, blemishes and stems. Slice thin crossways. Peel and slice onion in thin rings. Sprinkle salt over alternate layers of sliced tomatoes and onions in a glass dish and let stand in a cool place overnight.

Drain off the brine, rinse vegetables thoroughly in cold water and drain well.

Slice the lemon thinly and remove any seeds. Wash the peppers, remove the stems and seeds, and slice thinly crossways.

Tie all spices loosely in a muslin bag. Add spice bag and sugar to the vinegar in a large enamelware kettle. Bring to a boil Add the tomatoes, onions, lemons and pepper slices. Cook for 30 minutes after the mixture returns to a boil, stirring gently to prevent scorching.

Remove the spice bag and pack the pickles in hot, sterilized pint jars. Be sure there is enough liquid to cover all the vegetables in the jar, leaving ½ inch headroom.

Process in a Boiling Water Bath for 10 minutes. Again, I don’t do this.

Makes about 6 pints.

Rich, Sweet Tomato Dressing

Erma dear, I love my Shaker cookbooks too, and I have you to thank for taking me to Shakertown at Pleasant Hill. We have spent so many days wandering through the grounds and looking at all the exhibits and displays. I will even confess to snipping a few buds and seeds from herbs in their herb gardens to bring home.

Imagine the Shaker sisters cooking for a hundred or more at each meal in their giant kitchens, which they wisely placed partly underground for cooling, and then preserving, drying, canning. So many people think of the Shakers as one of those odd groups (okay, they were communal and celibate) who did everything in old fashioned ways like the Amish. What people forget is that the Shakers were big into inventing labor saving devices. If there were Shaker sisters today, they would be the first to use food processors, commercial mixers, and heavy duty baking equipment.

Recently I found some Washington State Walla Walla onions in the grocery. How they ended up here in Iowa, I do not know, but there were a couple small bags and I grabbed all they had. You know me Erma, I ate one straight out of the bag. I firmly believe that onions are a health food.

When we stayed at a little B and B outside Seattle several years ago, they served a salad dressing with Walla Walla onions. It works with other varieties as well, just not quite as sweet. This is a robust dressing with plenty of tang to enliven bland mostly lettuce salads.

Onion Dressing From Washington State:

1 small Walla Walla sweet onion
¼ cup catsup
½ cup salad oil
¼ cup wine vinegar
1/3 cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 ½ teaspoons paprika

Finely grate the onion on a grater. Add everything else and whip with a whisk well. Refrigerate. Before serving you may need to stir the dressing again.

Makes 1 ½ cups