My neighbor Caroline asked me last night if I was interested in some green tomatoes from her father’s garden.  Of course I was!  Dreaming of fried green tomatoes.  She told me that she would drop them off this morning and say hi if I was up.  I wasn’t up at 6:45 but I usually am; I guess I needed that last 15 minutes 🙂

What she actually dropped off was a basket full of herbs, garlic, peppers and the green tomatoes.  A lot of green tomatoes, but unfortunately not large enough to fry 😦

I had not intended to cook anything fiddly today, but these tomatoes and peppers said Indian curry to me.  I’m always up for any kind of curry and have a ridiculous amount of spices in the pantry.

One doesn’t absolutely NEED cute little bowls to measure out spices or small amounts of ingredients, but one should WANT them 😀   Nice tomatoes.

This is a fiddly recipe.  The best thing to do with this is to prep everything first and then, when you start cooking, you can enjoy the experience 😉

Serve the curry hot with rice or chapatis.  As this curry is not very spicy, you can pass a bowl of chilli sauce for those who like to light up their lives.  Hey vegetarians, no meat!

This recipe was inspired by M in the World.

Green Tomato Curry

1 tsp coriander seeds

2 tsp cumin seeds

2 tbsp peanut oil

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 tsp cumin seeds

1/8 tsp asafoetida

1 large onion, coarsely chopped

4 sweet Italian peppers, diced

1 tsp turmeric

1/2 tsp chili powder

2 lbs green tomatoes, cut into bite size quarters/pieces

Salt to taste

1/4 cup roasted peanuts, coarsely chopped

2 tbsp brown sugar

Roast the coriander and 2 tsp cumin seeds in a hot dry skillet, then remove, grind and set aside. Add the peanut oil to the skillet and heat to high, then add the mustard seeds, 1 tsp cumin seeds, asafoetida, roasting until fragrant.  Stir in the onion and pepper, then saute until the onion is translucent.  Stir in the tumeric and chili powder.

Stir in the tomatoes with the reserved roasted cumin/coriander powder and salt to taste. Simmer, stirring occasionally for 15 minutes.  Stir in the peanuts and sugar, then continue to simmer for about 5 minutes.