Green Tomato Jam

Chunky. Not too sweet. Unusual. Warm.

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Food painting artwork

30x30cm gouache and pencil on canvas. It's a bit floral, a bit tomatoey, heavily influenced by the current Illustrator flat illustration style, and has a friendly handmade feel. And it strongly reminds me of the 70's style floral wallpaper that was in the kitchen when I was growing up.

By the way, all the food painting artwork is available to own in the Official Art Store.

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The meatless meals recipe

When I lived in Scotland was when I was introduced to the utter delight of green tomato jam. It was a drizzly day, cold but insulated somewhat by all the clouds. I was on Experience Week at Findhorn. We were out gardening in the drizzle. Covering various outside plants in the vegetable garden with straw as protection against the upcoming frosts. We broke for tea. We had hot mugs of weak tea with cold crunchy toast topped with green tomato jam. Partly due to being cold and damp and partly due to the marvelous jam, I was smitten. I failed to get the recipe from the kitchen and it's taken years to find a comparable version of this jam. Now here it is. Thanks to a touch of internet sleuthing and a large dollop of reverse engineering.

2 pounds (900g) of green tomatoes, after being washed, chopped into wedges and deseeded

up to 2 cups sugar / 385g

juice of 1 lemon

7cm stick of cinnamon

5cm piece of fresh ginger, grated or minced

After washing, chopping and deseeding the tomatoes, dice them.

Combine the tomato chunks, sugar, lemon juice and ginger in a pot. Cover, and leave overnight in the fridge.

Next day, add the cinnamon.

Put the pot on the stove and bring to the boil.

Then reduce to a low heat and cook for 10 minutes.

Cover and refrigerate again.

Next day, repeat.

Skim off any muck if necessary.

Check the set of the jam and cook on if it needs it.

Put in sterilized jars and seal.

This jam comes out thick, chunky and substantial, with a hint of warmth.

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More vegetarian cookbook goodies

Need help with conversions? Download this handy dandy pdf of cooking conversion charts for every cooking measuring system I could find. It should make your life easier.

Want to check out more vegetarian dinner recipes? They're all in the Table of Contents.

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