Fried Green-ish Tomatoes

Green tomatoes picked two weeks ago...

A couple of weeks ago I pulled all the the remaining fruit off of our tomato plants, wary of the frost that would surely be arriving soon. Among the several dozen tomatoes I picked,  I ended up with about a dozen pure green tomatoes. I knew they wouldn’t be as quick to ripen and rather than throw them out, decided to try my hand at making fried green tomatoes!

Unfortunately I waited a bit to long and ripen they did, so I present to you: Fried Green-ish Tomatoes!

Still a couple of green ones left!

I found this recipe on the Tasty Kitchen and altered it a bit by using coconut oil instead of bacon fat (that would have been a lot of bacon we would have needed to eat and though I love me some bacon, I try to limit my intake). And I didn’t really measure out the ingredients like it suggested. I just dumped some milk, flour, egg and corn meal in their own bowls and went from there.

The process in making them was a bit tricky. I had to recruit A as my ‘turner’ because my hands were ‘gooed’ up dipping in first the milk, then the flour, then the egg, and finally the cornmeal. I had a few more pieces than the recipe called for, since I wanted to use up my tomatoes, but also mine were smaller so there were more to coat.

Sidenote: I was thinking about the movie Fried Green Tomatoes the whole time! I  kept saying “Yes’m Miss Daisy” in an exaggerated southern accent. I know, I know. Driving Miss Daisy was another movie altogether, but Jessica Tandy WAS in Fried Green Tomatoes as well. I just couldn’t remember any dialogue from it 🙂

It took about 10 minutes to make them and I was impressed with how they turned out visually. A was a master ‘turner’ and kept them from burning. But taste wise? They were ok. A tad bland. I didn’t add the optional seasoning, but I think the main problem was deviating from using the bacon fat.

When in doubt, add bacon.

I’m not sure I’ll be adding these to my repertoire of ‘must make’ recipes. I enjoyed them, because I’m a weirdo who likes bland food on occasion (plain rice cakes are my favourite), but they were a bit labour intensive. But since I’m endeavoring to try new things in the cooking-sphere, I can cross this off my kitchen bucket list!