Green tomato chutney all ready for the veg boxes

We’ve made 100 jars this year. We like to minimize waste and make the most of seasonal vegetable gluts.

Last of the ripe tomatoes in our veg boxes

The under-ripe tomatoes are going into chutney to have at Christmas.

In all our boxes this week: –
*tomatoes
*parsley
*sweetcorn
*onions
*sprouting broccoli OR Tuscan kale
*celery (Mark Norman, Bodmin)
potatoes (Burlerrow Farm, St Mabyn)

Standard boxes also have:-
extra potatoes
*mixed salad bag
*peppers OR aubergines
*French beans OR Swiss chard

* = grown to organic principles. All produce grown by Camel CSA unless otherwise indicated. Please wash all vegetables and fruit carefully

Camel CSA’s homemade chutney in our bumper Christmas boxes

Standard boxes also have:
Extra potatoes
*Swiss chard
red cabbage (Restharrow)
beetroot (Restharrow)
kohl rabi (Restharrow)

 

All veg grown by Camel CSA unless otherwise indicated
* = grown to organic principles

Recommended recipes from our website archive:
The perfect potato gratin
Parmesan-baked parsnips
Christmas roasted vegetables with honey and spice

Seasonal local food recipe No 115: Brown tom

We have so many tomatoes in our weekly veg boxes at the moment we hardly know what to do with them! 

Some of us are roasting the split, slightly over-ripe ones with garlic and onion, then whizzing them up into a tasty pasta sauce with basil and parsley from our veg boxes. Others are busy making green tomato chutney from the fruits that drop before ripening. 

I keep the small, sweet cherry tomatoes in a bowl on the worktop and dip into them like sweets. The larger ones are so full of flavour they’re ideal for cooking.

This variation on the classic tomato gratin is from Lindsey Bareham’s new recipe collection The Big Red Book of Tomatoes.

Serves: 4

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 35 minutes

Ingredients
1kg tomatoes, ripe, full-flavoured cored, scalded, peeled and thickly sliced
150g wholemeal bread, without crust
2 medium onions, very finely chopped
1 very large clove of garlic, finely chopped
25ml flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped 
30ml basil, finely chopped
6 tbsp parmesan, freshly grated
4 tbsp olive oil 
25g butter

Pre-heat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6. Chunk the bread and process to crumbs in a food processor. Mix together the breadcrumbs, onion, garlic, herbs and parmesan, and season generously with salt and pepper.

Use 1 tbsp of the olive oil to grease an approximately 25cm x 5cm metal oven dish. Cover the bottom with a third of the bread mixture and top with half the tomatoes. Season, then dribble over a tbsp of the olive oil. Cover the tomatoes with another third of the bread mixture and then the remaining tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper and another tbsp of olive oil. Finish with the remaining third of bread mixture and dribble over the remaining olive oil. Finally, cover the bread with thin slices of butter.

Cook for 35 minutes in the middle of the hot oven or until the top is well-browned. Serve from the dish, cut like a cake using a fish slice. Dust with more parmesan.