Green Tomato Mincemeat Pie Recipe

Tomatoes, tomatoes everywhere. The tomato plants are heavily laden with tomatoes–many still green.

When I wake up in the mornings I’m starting to feel a slight chill in the air. It won’t be long until there is frost. It’s time to make Green Tomato Mincemeat.

This traditional “mock” mincemeat has been made by frugal cooks for countless years. And, no wonder–it tastes as good, if not better, than real mincemeat and make the perfect mincemeat pie.

For my husband and me, Green Tomato Mincemeat Pie is an Autumn comfort food. We remember our mothers’ and grandmothers’ (and the church ladies) making this scrumptious pleasantly sweet, yet tart, traditional pie with its tangy blend of spices.

Green Tomato Mincemeat

6 cups green tomatoes

2 cups tart apples

1 cup raisins

2 cups brown sugar, firmly packed

1 cup strong coffee

1 lemon (grated peel and juice)

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon allspice

Core and quarter tomatoes and apples; put through food processor or chopper. Combine all ingredients in large saucepan. Simmer 2 hours, stirring occasionally. May be canned or frozen.

Amount: This recipe makes enough mincemeat for 2 9-inch pies.

Green Tomato Mincemeat Pie

1 quart (approx. 4 cups) green tomato mincemeat

1/4 cup flour

9-inch double-crust pie shell

milk (optional)

sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Stir the flour into the mincemeat; place in pastry-lined pie pan. Cover with top crust. Seal and crimp. Cut slits in top crust (or poke top crust several times with a fork). If desired, brush with a small amount of milk; sprinkle with sugar. Bake in oven for 10 minutes; then reduce heat to 350 degrees. Bake an additional 20 to 30 minutes or until crust is browned and juice just begins to bubble through slits in crust.

Serve Eggs Every Morning

Serve eggs every morning if you like, but do not repeat the same method of cooking more than twice a month.

Good Housekeeping (July, 1915)

Let’s see, I could make scrambled eggs one morning, fried eggs the next, then hard-boiled eggs, followed by soft-boiled eggs, and then poached eggs followed by an omelet. That’s only six different ways to make eggs.

Help! I have no idea how to make eggs 15 or 16 different ways.

Angel Tip (Nonalcoholic) Recipe

Happy Labor Day!

I plan to relax and enjoy the day with family and friends—and I may serve Angel Tip. This refreshing grape and mint cooler is perfect for all ages.

I found this recipe in a 1915 Good Housekeeping magazine. Angel Tip recipes generally include alcohol, but this one doesn’t. I’ve never seen a recipe that called for alcohol in a hundred-year-old women’s magazine. The 18^th amendment, which instituted prohibition, went into effect in 1920. In the years preceding its enactment, public opinion and the media strongly supported prohibition, so alcoholic drinks were generally taboo in magazine recipe sections.

Angel Tip

Crushed ice

Mint leaves

Grape-juice

Sweetened whipped-cream

Use tall ice tea glasses. Fill each glass with crushed ice. Stir in a few (5-7 per glass) crushed mint leaves. Add the grape juice, and top with the whipped cream, and a sprig of mint. Serve with straws or long-handled spoons. Home-made grape-juice is preferable for this drink, but the commercial varieties may be used successfully.

To make homemade whipped cream, use 1/4 cup whipping cream per glass of Angel Tip. Whip the cream until there are stiff peaks; then, for each serving, stir in 1 tablespoon confectioner’s sugar.

Adaptation of recipe in Good Housekeeping (October, 1915)

You may notice that this is my second post this month that uses mint. Last week I did a post on Mint Glazed Apples. The mint plants in my garden are succulent and green this time of year, yet I have few recipes that use mint. I’m excited to find some old-time recipes that call for this healthful herb.

Glazed Mint Apples Recipe

I love these last lazy-daisy days of summer. The apples are ripe, the mint plants in my garden are going wild—and I found a recipe that used both ingredients in a hundred-year-old magazine.

Glazed Mint Apples are easy to make: and a healthy, refreshing dessert. Life is good!

Glazed Mint Apples

6 apples (McIntosh or other variety that retains shape when cooked)

2 cups sugar

2 cups water

2 dozen mint sprigs

Boil sugar and water together for fifteen minutes. Pare and core apples, and place in a frying pan. Pour the sugar syrup over them, add eighteen of the mint-sprigs tied in a bunch, and simmer slowly. Turn often to prevent them from becoming mushy. Each time the apples are turned, use spoon to baste apples with sugar syrup. When the apples have softened (about 20 minutes), remove carefully from pan, baste with a small amount syrup, and put a sprig of mint in the hole of each apple. Serve warm or cold.

Adapted from a recipe in Good Housekeeping (October, 1915)

Hot off the Press—A Hundred Years Ago Returns!

A new version of A Hundred Year Ago that focuses more on the foods and slower-paced lifestyle of the early 1900s will be rolled out later this week. I plan to do posts about twice a week.

Over the past few months, I’ve discovered that even when I’m not blogging, I still enjoy making hundred-year-old recipes that use seasonal, local foods. I also continue to be fascinated by the simpler way of life a hundred years ago.

And, I discovered how much I missed the blogging community. I met so many wonderful people during the four years that I did A Hundred Years Ago.

I finally realized that A Hundred Years Ago could continue without the diary. . . dah. . . I’m not sure why it’s taken me so long to figure that out.

Over the next few days, I plan to update the look of A Hundred Years Ago. There probably will be moments when this blog looks very strange as I make the transition to a new template. Keep your fingers crossed that it goes smoothly.

See you soon!

Since all of Grandma’s diary entries have been posted, this blog has ended; but you’re invited to linger for a minute or two to explore the site. You may enjoy reading (or rereading) some of the posts.

—

I’d like to thank my family, friends, and the blogging community for your support and assistance. It’s been a wonderful four years. You’re awesome.

Final Diary Entry

19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Tuesday, December 29, 1914: This diary is surely doomed to be a failure and I am terribly tired of writing in it. Christmas has come and gone and I am just the same except a little older. Got some nice presents of which none were misfits. Ma and Ruth seemed to be pleased with the presented I gave them, so then I am satisfied.

Took down the tree today. We never keep our tree long, because there isn’t much to trim it with.

The Conclusion

Good-bye old year, good-bye. Tis now Dec. 29, but I am really ready to say good-bye. I haven’t much faith in myself nor has this friend with me, so it is best that we should part.

Adieu

Helen(a) and Raymond Swartz and their descedants at the Swartz Reunion, White Deer Park, circa 1964 — Helen(a) and Raymond Swartz and their descendants at the Swartz Reunion, White Deer Park, circa 1964

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Good grief, Grandma. . . I hate to disagree on the very last day of the diary, but you are wrong. The diary has done some wonderful things–both for you and for me.

Get your confidence back quickly. You’re going to need it. I looked into my crystal ball and know that you have a long, magnificent life ahead of you with a fantastic husband, and wonderful children and grandchildren.

Adieu for now—I’ll catch up with you when our paths cross again. Go live the rest of your life. You’ll be awesome.