Fried Green Tomatoes

Sunday morning I woke up with plans to go to the Farmer's Market. I love going on Sunday mornings to pick out fresh produce for the week, and its always fun talking to the farmers about what they've grown and how they like to cook it. I got dressed, warmed up a zucchini oatmeal muffin, and enjoyed my breakfast with a glass of skim milk. I waited (and waited) for Pat to get up so we could go to the market together, and in the meantime ate another muffin.

We headed down to Main Street when a sad realization dawned on me...last week was the last Farmer's Market of the year! I'd missed it! Disappointed, we headed for the grocery store instead, but on our way saw this little farm stand:

Though it was little, it had everything we were hoping for! We loaded up with over a dozen apples (Macoun and Empire), 2 butternut squash, a zucchini and a summer squash, 1 red tomato, and 3 green tomatoes. The green tomatoes inspired a tasty snack I'd make for the Patriots game later.

After the farm and grocery store we came home to unload all of our food, and before we could change our minds, we headed back out for the gym. Today was just a weights day, since I ran 10 miles yesterday. We did backs and bis, which ended up being 4 back exercises, 3 bicep exercises, and 1 that tackled both back and bi - we did 3 sets of 10-12 reps of each, and used both machines and free weights.

Back at home I got to work on our football snack...fried green tomatoes! I've had these a few times before , mostly when I traveled down south, and they are so delicious. They're definitely not very good for you, but sometimes you need a little grease when watching football.

My tomatoes:

Look how beautiful they are sliced! I almost didn't want to fry them...

Here's my workstation. After slicing the tomatoes, I sprinkled salt and pepper on them, then lightly dusted both sides with flour. Then submerge the tomato slice in the beaten egg, remove and let excess egg drip off. Next coat both sides of the tomato in the bread crumbs (I used a mixture of Italian seasoned bread crumbs and Panko).

Pour about 1/4-1/2 inch oil in a pan and head on medium. Once the oil is hot (you'll see that it becomes very thin, or you can test by dropping some crumbs in the oil to see if it bubbles a lot) place the tomatoes in the oil. Cook for 2-3 minutes on each side.

I placed the tomatoes on paper towels when they were done cooking to drain some of the excess oil. After letting them cool for a couple minutes, I sampled them. Wow. These are incredible!

I decided to go Italian themed on some of them, so I put some marinara sauce on top of the tomato, then topped that with mozzarella medallions. I microwaved them to melt the cheese (but in hind sight, it would have been even better if I'd baked them for 5 minutes instead). Pat holding our plates:

And an up close look at these babies:

I can't tell you how delicious these were! I snacked on several of the plain ones, and ate both of my Italian-style tomatoes.  I was a little bit nervous about frying them at first (since I haven't deep fried anything before) and even asked Pat if I should try cooking them in light butter instead of oil. He made the good point that these aren't good for you anyway, so there wasn't much of a point in trying to make them a little healthier. So I decided to go big or go home and fried them in the oil! If you've never had fried green tomatoes before, I strongly suggest you try them.

Ingredients:

• Green tomatoes 
• 2 eggs, beaten
• Flour (for dusting)
• Bread crumbs (I used half Italian seasoned and half Panko)
• Oil
• Marinara sauce
• Fresh Mozzarella cheese
• Salt and Pepper

Slice the tomatoes about 1/2 inch thick.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and dust both sides lightly with flour. Dip the slices in egg, allowing excess egg to drip off, then cover both sides in the bread crumbs. Fry for 2-3 minutes on each side in a pan with about 1/4 - 1/2 inch hot oil on medium.

If desired, add marinara sauce and fresh mozzarella slices to the fried green tomatoes and either bake for 5 minutes or microwave for 2 minutes to melt cheese. Enjoy!