Surest Sign of Fall

Last fall when we got green tomatoes from our CSA I wasn't sure how to use them. So, of course, I made fried green tomatoes and they were fine, good even, but I didn't quite get the hype. This year I decided to become more adventurous and when green tomatoes were on our pick-up list yesterday afternoon I started thinking about all the compotes and salsas and preserves and other green tomato recipes I've been browsing getting ready for this day.

Is it any surprise that I turned to the Boston Cooking-School Cook Book for a recipe? I know, I know, you are wondering if I have any other cook books and I assure you I do, I just find this one has everything I need. Avocado mousse? Page 144. Honeycomb pudding? Page 553. English monkey? Page 127. And need I remind you that there is a whole chapter on Gingerbread and Doughnuts?

If you follow this little story to the end, you will get a peak at a non-classic cooking idea since the stuff you see on this site is only a small portion of my cooking. So we'll start with a classic recipe, but we'll end with one of my improvs.

Curried Green Tomatoes
Adapted from the Boston Cooking School Cook Book.

2 Tbs butter
2 Tbs minced onion
1 tsp curry powder
2 cups green tomatoes, chopped
Salt and pepper


Melt butter, add onion and cook slowly until yellow. Add curry powder and tomatoes and cook until heated thoroughly. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Now here is where the recipe ends and it would be fine served over rice or scooped up with naan. But because I had a whole tray full of peppers roasting in the oven and because I was trying to be a little creative for a contest I wanted to enter this recipe in, I decided to use the curried tomatoes as the start of a soup.

To the tomatoes I added:
5 cups or so of roasted peppers, mostly red but a couple small green, yellow and orange ones
2 cloves of roasted garlic, smashed
1 can of garbanzo beans
Cayenne pepper
Cumin
Coriander

I let this simmer a bit over medium-low heat, then added:

1 cup light coconut milk
more seasoning to taste

Using an immersion blender, I blended the soup until it was smooth but still had nice big pieces of pepper, tomatoes, and whole beans. And I got this...