Green Tomato Cake and Scratches

I am on vacation this week, but have been busier than ever. My cousin, Saja is visiting from Memphis with her two daughters. They are lots of fun and love driving the mule and visiting the horses. I have a trainer come and ride and he gave them a lesson on Monday.

Claire developed scratches last week. I thought it was an injury and was putting Furazone ointment on them. It turns out it is some kind of bacteria that gets into the skin just above the hoof from wet pastures. It is also known as hoof rot and other lovely sounding names. It has been so unbelievably hot that wet pastures is hard to imagine. Nonetheless, Claire got it and then it spread to cellulitis and her whole right front leg was swollen. The vet came and gave her medicine for the cellulitis. The swelling is almost gone, but now Libby has scratches.

Basically the treatment is scrubbing with Betadine scrub and then rinsing and putting on Betadine solution. You would think they would have permanently orange legs, but it fades in about an hour. Claire is mostly healed and Libby is getting better, but I hope it is gone before I have to go back to work next week. It is time consuming and I don't want to have to do it before and after work. I will if I have to, but I don't want to.

I have been busy, but decided to make some Green Tomato Cake. I like fried green tomatoes and I like to make Banana Nut Bread and it looked like an interesting mix of the two. I got the recipe from Cultivate magazine and played around with it a bit. It called for raisins and I don't like them. It called for 2 cups granulated sugar and I did 1 cup granulated and 1 cup light brown sugar. I would have done dark brown sugar , but the light brown was open and almost gone....you know how it is. Anyway, here it is.




Green Tomato Cake

2 cups chopped green tomatoes
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped pecans




Place the chopped tomatoes in a bowl and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon salt. Let stand 10 minutes. Place in a colander, rinse with cold water and drain. Dump them out on a few paper towels and pat dry.




Preheat oven to 350. Spray a bread loaf pan with Pam.

Blend one stick of butter and sugar together. Add the eggs and beat until smooth.




Add the nuts and raisins or Craisins if you want to. I didn't. I dumped 1 cup of flour and then all the spices and mixed and then added the second cup and mixed. Add the tomatoes and stir them in. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake for 60minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the cake's center comes out clean.



I made a critical error. The recipe called for a 9 X 13 pan, but I wanted to make it more like a bread. I kept checking every five minutes from the 40 minutes for the original recipe in the larger pan. I took it out too soon even though the toothpick came out clean. I must have put it in the wrong spot, or it could be that the crust was so crispy the it cleaned the tootpick for me on the way out. Whatever the reason, it was underdone and I had to put it back in the pan for more cooking. Even with all this, the cake came out moist and so good. So try it but if you use a loaf pan, check the tooth pick very carefully. Or use a 9 X 13 pan and cook for 40 to 45 minutes.