Green Tomato Bailout Pie

I could blame myself for getting the plants into the ground a month late or anthropogenic climate change for screwing with the growing season, but this year we had a lot of green tomatoes. Enough that we could both make the traditional family relish and a whole pie. It was made and served to the Pie Cabinet right after the GM/Chrysler bailout was announced, hence the name. That and the fact that many felt it just should not have been. The pie turned out fairly well, we'll see about its namesake.

Once again, this is based heavily based on one of Ken's recipes. Buy his book.

Ingredients:

1 Standard pastry crust, or whole wheat crust, single crust

Filling:
4 1/2 Cups cored, seeded and very thinly sliced green tomatoes
1/2 Cup Craisins
1/3 Cup turbinado sugar
1/3 Cup honey
2 T fresh lemon juice
1 T brown rice vinegar
1/2 t ground cinnamon
1/2 t ground ginger
1/2 t ground cloves
2 T cornstarch (or 3 depending on how wet the tomatoes are)

Crisp Cornmeal Topping:
1/3 Cup all-purpose flour
1/4 Cup fine yellow cornmeal
1/2 Cup turbinado sugar
1/4 t ground cinnamon
1/4 t salt
1/4 Cup unsalted butter

Procedure:

(1) Roll out the pastry and get it into a 9" pie pan. Toss it into a freezer and preheat the oven to 400.

(2) In a large glass bowl, combine the green tomatoes, cranberries, Turbinado, honey, lemon juice and vinegar and mix well. Stir in the spices and cornstarch. Pull the pan out of the freezer and smooth the filling into the chilled shell.

(3) Place the pie in the oven for 30min. Make the topping by combining all the dry ingredients in a bowl, then cut in the butter with a pastry blender.

(4) Lower the oven temp to 375, loosely drape foil over the top to prevent excessive drying. Return the pie to the oven for 10min.

(5) Pull the pie out of the oven, spread the crumbs over the top evenly, then tamp down slightly. Put a pan underneath the pie to contain any spills, and bake until the juices bubble thickly at the edges, roughly 25min.

Let cool on a wire rack for at least 2hrs. Enjoy the really unique and wonderful smells of the spices and vinegar in the house all day.