Sweet Potatoes & Green Tomatoes

A couple years ago, I had a problem with my sweet potatoes, black rot. Well, it’s a problem again this year. So many of my pretty looking sweets developed those same ugly spots as they cured. Rats.

Photo from October 2010, but this year’s look the same.

This is a virus which will spread during storage. It is said to impart a bitter taste, though my goats don’t seem to care. But I care.

At that time, I decided to can as many as sweet potatoes as I could.

Freshly canned sweet potatoes, October 2010. Canned with light sugar syrup, 90 mins @ 10 lbs pressure

As a way to preserve sweet potatoes, I’d say this method is so-so. Handy in a pinch, but not as flavorful as freshly baked sweet potatoes. Best use, baked goods such as quick breads or muffins.

To salvage this year’s harvest, I looked at two different methods. Freezing is one. I want to try partially baking, wrapping in foil, and freezing to finish baking before serving. I’d also like to freeze some puree. Back in the day I used to puree and can something similar, pumpkin. Now the USDA has added purees to the list of things not safe for home canning. I suspect eventually everything will not be safe for home canning.

The second was to dehydrate. This is a bit more time consuming, requiring peeling, slicing, and steam blanching for 3 minutes, but, what better excuse for hanging around the wood cookstove on a chilly day.

I rigged that up a steamer with a large pot and my colander, using the preheated water from the cookstove water reservoir to give me a head start.

I wouldn’t use that water for cooking, but for steaming, I didn’t have a problem with it.

These went into the dehydrator at 125° F until hard.

Dehydrated sweet potatoes

I’ll have to let you know how well these work. For some, even though I cut off all the dark spots, I discovered that some perfectly good looking pieces blackened with drying. I separated these out. They’ll eventually soften somewhat in our humidity, and I’ll see what the goats think of these. A good source of vitamin A when fresh forage is scarce.

For previous years’ green tomatoes, I’ve made green tomato jam, which is yummy, and canned slices for fried green tomatoes, which is a real treat.

Photo from Nov. 2011. How well do they fry? Click here.

Both of these recipes are keepers. I still had some jam in the pantry however, and after letting the largest of my green tomatoes ripen on the window sill, the rest were too small to slice for frying. I decided to try a couple of new recipes.

Pickled green tomatoes on left, Green tomato conserve on right

The green tomato conserve is from The Art of Preserving by Jacqueline Wejman and Charles St. Peter. The book was a gift from Benita (Basically Benita) and has quite a variety of good looking recipes. It called for tart apples, and I even had enough of our homegrowns to make it. The lemons I had to buy, because my Meyers lemons aren’t ready.

The second experiment was a green tomato pickle for which I used Mrs. Wage’s prepackaged Bread & Butter pickle mix. Dan likes pickles made from it and I can usually pick up a package or two on summer clearance every year.

Samples leftover from canning were pretty tasty, but I don’t think Dan is convinced, simply because the tomatoes are green instead of red. I’ll allow that the color isn’t as attractive as products made from ripe toms, especially if any of the them are starting to turn red, of if apple cider vinegar is used like I did. Green + orange or amber = a muddy color. Hopefully, taste will win out in the end.

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