This recipe for
Cheesy Polenta-Green Tomato Gratin came out great. I used chicken broth instead of milk for the polenta, to cut the calories a bit, and didn't miss the milk at all. If you layered in some shredded cooked chicken, cooked shrimp, or cooked ground beef, you could make a meal out of it.
And here is one of my favorite homemade salsa recipes. I make this with my green tomatoes every year and it is a big hit.
Green Tomato Salsa- 2 lbs green tomatoes, chopped (no need to peel them) (should be about 5 cups)
- 5 oz long green chilies (like Anaheim chilies) or green or red bell peppers (about 3 chilies or one bell pepper), finely diced
- 1 oz jalapeno chilies (about 1 chili), minced
- 10 oz onions (about 2 medium), diced
- 1 cup vinegar
- 1/4 cup lime juice
- 6 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tbsp cumin or more to taste
- 2 tbsp cilantro
- 1 tbsp salt
- 1 tsp crushed red pepper
Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until it is the consistency you like for your salsa.
This recipe makes about 5 cups of salsa and comes in at around 5 calories or less per tbsp. If you are going to can the salsa, use bottled lime juice (for the preservatives they add to it) and vinegar that is at least 5% acidic. You need to process it for 20 min in a boiling water canner. If you don't want to can it, you can freeze it or just give the extra away. It seems to keep for quite a while in the fridge. I've had open jars in there for at least a month or longer and haven't had problems with it going bad.