Green Tomato Jam

I woke up at about 3am this morning with dreams of jam making swirling around in my head.  ‘Am I addicted or what!?!  I was also worried about the green tomatoes I had soaking in a bowl…waiting for me.  Were they in a stainless steel non reactive bowl?  I was so worried about it I woke Matt up to ask him what he thought.  He said his usual “they’ll be fine…go back to sleep”  I closed my lids for a few more hours and woke at 7am to get last nights dishes tidied and my kitchen sorted for todays canning adventures.

My friend provided me with an abundance of green tomatoes and putting them up in an assortment of different ways is my challenge.  After all no one needs 3 dozen jars of the same thing…or do they?  Experimentation is the name of the game with this ingredient.  So green tomato jam it is.

RECIPE FOR GREEN TOMATO JAM (courtesy of Fruits of the Earth):

• juice and finely pared zest of 1 small lemon (I cut the lemon peel into fine ribbons or strips)
• 1 pound green tomatoes, finely chopped
• 1 5/8 cups sugar (I did 1 2/3 cups)
• 2 pieces of stem ginger, about 1 inch in diameter, finely sliced

1. Place the lemon zest in a stainless steel preserving pan and add just enough water to cover it.  Bring to a boil on high heat.  Reduce heat and simmer for about 1 hour or until soft and semi-translucent.  Drain the zest, discarding the liquid.
2. Place the tomatoes and lemon juice in a bowl with the sugar and leave overnight for the sugar to soak up some of the juices from the fruit.  Use a glass or stainless steel bowl (a non-reactive bowl).
3. Next day, pour the contents of the bowl into a non-reactive preserving pan and add the zest.  Stir over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved, then turn up the heat and boil rapidly to reach setting point.
4. Stir in the stem ginger.
5. Ladle hot jam into hot sterilized jars leaving 1/4″ headspace.  Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace, if necessary, by adding hot jam.  Wipe rim. Center lid on jar. Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip-tight.
6. Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water.  Bring to a boil and process for 20 minutes.  Remove canner lid.  Wait 5 minutes, then remove jars, cool, label and store.

I did three batches of this at once…for some reason I prefer doing more rather than less even if it is a recipe I haven’t tried.  The yield for a single batch is 500mL but I only got the yield of a double batch.  I think when measuring the tomatoes I have too much of their water in the bowl accounting for less actual fruit.  This jam is quite different from the red tomato jam posted earlier and I am wondering how the green tomatoes would fair as a substitute in that recipe…maybe something to think about?

Put up Total:

• 3 x 250mL wide mouth mason jars
• 1 x 250mL regular mouth mason jar