" wrote in message
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On Jun 27, 5:28 pm, "Mary Fisher" wrote:

I agree about the flavour. I don't have enough room in the greenhouse for
all the tomatoes we want so I grow at least as many outside, have never
had
a failed crop (although sometimes it's not as heavy as the more sheltered
ones) and the flavour is certainly better than indoor ones.


Mary, what do you do with the large volume you grow, do you make
chutney if so, can I have the recipe please. I make tomato chutney
from our tomatoes every year but it is a recipe handed down and I
would like to try another one but only one that someone who makes
chutney would recommend.

Judith

I don't often make tomato chutney so don't have a favourite recipe but there
are very many, it's worth experimenting if you like chutney.

I dry tomatoes (they're WONDERFUL!), bottle them, puree them and when I'm
fed up of seeing tomatoes (which can take a long time) and am running out of
time to deal with them I freeze them. Then they can be used for cooking.

But most of them we eat. Every day, sometimes twice a day, the very last are
left until Christmas Eve when we have out traditional Christmas Eve supper
of home made pork pie (Jane Grigson's recipe) and fresh tomatoes.

How?

Well, I never use green tomatoes for chutney, Instead I put the end of
season vines into a large basket or baskets. Every day I pick over the fruit
and we eat the ripened ones - they will ripen without the aid of bananas,
apples, brown paper bags, drawers or window sills. Eventually they're
reduced to one basket - and I admit some very small tomatoes. Then I pick
them off the stalks and still use them. For the last fifteen years the last
ones have been eaten fresh - although I admit somewhat withered - to begin
our Christmas festival.

After that I rely on the stored ones and don't buy any, we only use them for
cooking in the out of season months.

I make chutney but from other fruits, a neighbour gives me plums (which I
also freeze and dry) and if I don't have any fresh fruit to use and I
remember I make date chutney.

As far as I'm concerned the combination of a dehydrator and freezer(s) are a
gift to the Modern Housewife :-)

We love tomatoes.

Mary