Vegetarian Mincemeat: Green Tomato Pie

I cleared out most of the garden yesterday thinking that maybe we'd finally get a frost. Besides getting loads of bell peppers I had a bag full of cherry sized green tomatoes.


This means time for my annual green tomato pie. I use the recipe from my 1950 Betty Crocker cookbook:


Here is the recipe:


If you want to make this, here is Betty's (and my changes) in a downloadable (MS Word) version

Here is the step by step (my changes in parentheses):

Mix together:
•1 1/3 cups sugar
•6 2/3 tablespoons GOLD MEDAL flour (I use whatever flour and round to 7)
•1 ½ teaspoons of salt
•1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon or nutmeg (¾ t cinnamon AND ¾ t nutmeg)


Mix lightly through:
•4 cups green tomato slices
•4 tablespoons lemon juice or 1 ½ tablespoons mild vinegar (vinegar)
•1 1/3 teaspoons grated lemon rind (omit)

What I do is:
Put the cut up tomatoes in the bottom crust


Dump the mixed dry ingredients on top


Shake it a little bit


Dot the filling in the pan with:
• 1 ½ tablespoons of butter

Cover with top crust. Bake until nicely browned. Serve slightly warm.

TEMPERATURE: 425 hot oven
TIME: 35 to 45 minutes

My changes:

Usually I do the lattice top, just because its cool. I also mix egg whites, milk and sugar to brush over top crust

TIME: 45 to 55 minutes

I was cheating so I used frozen crusts, and got distracted taking out the top one so it looks pretty bad:


Usually I end up burning the edges so I often wrap foil around the pan, also this can get drippy so I always put a cookie sheet under it. I think the cookie sheet is why I always need to bake longer:


I forgot to brush on the milk/egg/sugar mixture so it didn't look quite as "golden" as usual:


I called the neighbors to invite them over when it was done and the girls were in bed. Mike, a phenomonal chef, proclaimed it good.

Over course the key question is: How does it taste? Well I've served it to people telling them it was apple, and they believed me. It's a little more tart, so my description is that it falls halfway between apple and mincemeat, hence today's title.

And here's how it looks half gone: