Recipes & Food Styling

Green Tomato & Hatch Chile Tart

A lesson I learned today is always have hatch chiles & plenty of butter on hand for when your dear friend surprises you with beautiful green tomatoes she’s grown in her garden! I am so grateful to my friend Marquita for giving me a whole brown paper shopping bag full of green tomatoes. There were small tomatoes, medium tomatoes and even a few of those giant green tomatoes in distorted shapes. The less round the better.

She gave them to me at the Iron Bridge Trailhead at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie before we went out on a gorgeous fall afternoon hike.   

There was so much I could do with them. I’d wanted to make fried green tomatoes for Fritz’s Zoom birthday party, but there were no green tomatoes. 

Suddenly today here they were right in front of me- a whole bag full of green tomatoes. I wanted to act fast & make something for a late dinner, and I had the ingredients on hand to make something I’d wanted to make all summer: a cookie sheet tart with all sorts of mis-shapen and multi-colored tomatoes!

Green Tomato & Hatch Chile Tart

Roll out pie crusts and cover cookie sheet. Crimp crust around edges; use fork to poke vent holes throughout. Spread butter across dough; spread herb cream cheese thinly on top. Sprinkle onions & garlic on top of dough; as well as pink Himalayan sea salt & freshly ground black pepper.

Slice tomatoes into thin slices; rest on paper towel to dry.

Arrange tomato slices on dough. Sprinkle chopped red onion and minced garlic.

Shred 1 block of hatch chile cheese and cover tomatoes with cheese; sprinkle dried crushed red pepper & freshly ground black pepper on top.

Bake in oven at 375 degrees for 40 minutes.