November Recipe: Savory Green Tomato Sauce

Every year as fall moves towards winter, I play with ways to use up our summer garden’s last gift, those green tomatoes. For Thanksgiving this year, a green tomatoes/peppers sauce was on the table as a turkey condiment.
Here’s how to make the sauce.

Savory Green Tomato Sauce

Ingredients:

green tomatoes (and a few red ones if you have them)
1 large bell pepper
3 – 4 celery stalks
balsamic vinegar
a medium-sized onion
green olives – about 1/2 c
Extra-virgin olive oil q. b. (“quanto basta” or “as much as you need”)
salt, pepper q. b. (“quanto basta” or “as much as you need”)
optional – sugar

Wash all the green tomatoes and also any left which are on the red side. Separate the two. (I had about 4 c. this year). Dice the tomatoes.

Dice celery and dice white onion.

Dice, too, bell pepper and olives.

Cover stainless steel frying pan with olive oil. Heat – but do not burn – and slide in diced onions and celery. Simmer a few minutes.

Add diced bell peppers and simmer a few more minutes until peppers soften a bit.

Add diced green tomatoes and olives and simmer until tomatoes soften a bit. Then add red tomatoes.

Stir gently as mixture cooks. When tomatoes are nearly soft, add about a splash or two of balsamic (to taste) and simmer until balsamic cooks down. Salt and pepper as needed. If needed, add a bit of sugar to cut down on acidity.