The Most Wonderful Time of the Year - Green Tomatoes & Such

It really is the most wonderful time of the year.  Time for fresh stuff to come from the garden to the table within an hour or less.  And time for canning, freezing, drying, you name it.

Tonight it was green tomato rice (recipe following), broiled bay scallops, and freshly picked green beans.  I meant (I really did!) to take a picture of a plate of it all, but I was really hungry, got really excited, and well, you know the rest.

So anyway, Big Steve was out doing some thinning and pruning out in the garden and we ended up with a mess of green tomatoes.  What to do?  It's tough to preserve on a moment's notice after a full day at work, especially when you have dinner to prepare ahead of you.  So we did what anyone would have done...we made green tomato rice as a side dish tonight.  Now...green tomato rice would be fine and dandy on it's own if you didn't have any meat.  You could just stir in some cheese near the end and it would be a meal in itself.  As it was, we had broiled bay scallops with garlic, parsley and oregano, along with some green beans freshly picked from the garden.

So anyway, whilst Big Steve was snapping away at the green beans, the green tomato rice was being prepared.  So here's how you do it:

Just take some bacon (we used "about" four slices)and fry it up in a nice saucepan till it's brown.  Then take out the bacon and set it aside to drain.  Then, to the bacon fat, add about one chopped onion, and cook it up for just a minute or so, until it's just getting soft.  Then throw in some finely chopped green tomatoes (2 or so) and cook for another minute or so.  Then you finely mince a nice jalapeno (we had a ton in the garden - just see it minced in the top photo) and a chopped clove of garlic (or whatever you have).  Bring it all around to a nice soft sizzle.

Now, add 2 cups of chicken stock, one cup of white rice, and a dash of tabasco sauce...a little freshly ground salt and pepper, a bit of thyme...and set the timer for 20-25 minutes.  When it's ready to serve, crumble in the reserved bacon and sprinkle the whole mess with the parmesan.  It's deep of the summer nirvana, friends.  A really nice kick, and yet, it's real comfort food.  And gluten free, to boot!

Happy eating!!!