Fried Green Tomatoes

I’ve been meaning to post this recipe for some time. But, end of the summer activities just seemed to take over my life. I’m not complaining—it was all fun.

We loaded up the truck with clothes, a fridge, and various gear and got my son back to college life. We enjoyed a beautiful Labor Day weekend at the beach and had the pleasure of sharing in the engagement celebration of a young couple who are friends of my niece. We joined neighborhood friends for a Labor Day dinner. The finale—a weekend at Pawleys Island. What a beautiful, serene place with lovely people who were nice enough to share it with us.

My life is not always so wonderfully active. Sometimes it’s just active with work and chores and other must-do type things. You know, just regular life. Now that my wonderful end of the summer whirlwind is over it’s back to normalcy.

I made Fried Green Tomatoes just before all this fun began but never had the time to share the recipe.

We had a bumper crop of tomatoes this year but the weather didn’t permit them to all ripen. So, fried green tomatoes it was. You might think the tomatoes would be hard and tart because that’s how they look. Not to worry—they transform in the frying pan. The heat from the cooking softens them and brings out a subtle tomato flavor.

Hopefully you have a few more on the vine so you can try this. If not, just tag it for next year’s tomatoes. They’re easy, delicious, and different. I think you’ll enjoy them.

Fried Green Tomatoes

2 green tomatoes

½ cup milk substitute (rice, hemp, or soy milk)

1 tablespoon olive oil

¼ cup cornmeal

½ cup gluten free breadcrumbs

½ teaspoon each salt and pepper

¼ teaspoon paprika

1 ½ teaspoons chopped or dry parsley

vegetable and olive oil for frying

Set out two small glass pie plates. Place the milk substitute and olive oil in one and all the dry ingredients—cornmeal, GF breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, paprika and parsley—in the other.

Whisk the “milk” and olive oil together. Then, in the other dish, mix the dry ingredients with a fork.

Heat about ¼ inch vegetable oil in a cast iron frying pan over medium high heat. I like to use canola or grapeseed oil with a few tablespoons of olive oil for taste.

Slice the tomatoes into ¼ inch slices. Dip them first in the “milk”/olive oil mixture and then in the corn flour/breadcrumb mixture coating both sides thoroughly.

Place each round carefully into the hot oil. Fry for a minute or so until one side is brown then gently flip it over and brown the other side. Remove to a paper towel lined plate.

Don’t overcrowd the frying pan and be sure to add more oil if necessary in later batches. If you don’t keep the oil level high enough they will have a tendency burn.

Serve the tomatoes warm.

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Comments

[Jeena]

These look so tasty Nancy, I especially love the cornmeal coating - I love cornmeal! Great recipe. :-)