February 1, 2025
WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS,
YOU MAKE LEMONADE.
BUT, WHAT IF YOU GET
GREEN TOMATOES?
YOU MAKE CHOW-CHOW!
The first week of January was warm—high temperature in the 60’s, maybe even higher. But, this is Texas. Give it a little time and the weather will change.
Weather reports started warning of incoming weather –COLD TO VERY COLD.
And, our tomatoes are still blooming and setting fruit, but not ripening. What should we do? In the past, we’ve harvested the green tomatoes and put them in a cool dark place (under the bed was one suggestion) or we could just let them freeze and use them in the compost bin.
We had five plants. I remembered one year Dorothy Shockley, a fellow Master Gardener at Raincatcher’s RED Garden had inviterd us to her home to take care of that year’s abundant crop of green tomatoes. She had a recipe for B&B CHOW CHOW (also know n as Cool Point Relish in Louisiana). It was the same pickled green tomatoes I had eaten with my fried catfish years ago, but never knew how to make it. Dorothy shared her recipe and I dug it out of my files.
When Roger & I started picking, we didn’t know if we would have enough green tomatoes to make a batch. Not to worry—we had 10 pounds of varying sizes, some beginning to blush, but most were green rocks.
We went to the store to purchase the rest of the ingredients: onions, jalapenos, white vinegar, more sugar, canning lids. I already had jars and rings in the pantry.
After a couple of false starts at preparation (I’m not as young as I used to be) we got our batch of chow-chow jarred and ready to refrigerate .We even saved the excess picking solution per Dorothy’s recommendation to use with cucumbers and other salad ingredients.
Personally I like this solution better than lemonade.
Bon Appetite!
Cindy Bicking, Dallas County Master Gardener Class of 2006
“The Compost Queen of Raincatcher’s RED”
