Green Tomatoes

I was going to open this post with a picture of my tomato plants themselves. But really, it's just sad. The stalks and leaves are yellow-brown, wilted, hanging off of their wire cage exoskeletons. And the tomatoes themselves? Green, green, green. It's been a slim harvest this year.

But luckily, green tomatoes can be the source of some truly delicious recipes. With their firm flesh, punchy astringency, and juiciness, they bake up surprisingly well. Over on NPR's Kitchen Window, I turn the harvests' forlorn remainders into some lovely early fall recipes: green tomato pesto, cheesy green tomato and pimento cheese biscuits, and my favorite of all, this South Indian-style green tomato pickle. You can check out the recipes, and my paean to the thrifty waste-not-want-not ethos, over here.