FRIED GREEN TOMATOES

It’s fall and all of your tomatoes are not going to have time to ripen; so, 2 suggestions.

Pick while their still green. No pink at all. Slice them ¼ to ½ of an inch and dip in beaten egg and then put in panko bread crumbs. They come plain or Italian. I prefer the plain. My girlfriend Joan loves the Italian flavored better. She always has been spicier than me! Now, in a hot frying pan, put in canola oil and some butter just to cover the bottom of the pan. I think the butter helps to brown.  Salt and pepper, brown on each side and serve. Love the crunch of the panko!

My grandma never used panko. I just love the crunch. You can just dredge in bread crumbs. But, what she did was fry them in bacon grease-oh the best! She always had a small container of it on the top shelf of her wood stove. 

Another thing she did was make a “gravy” for them. When all the tomatoes are cooked she would gradually add some milk into the frying pan stirring constantly to make “gravy.”  Then add salt and pepper to taste and pour over tomatoes. I don’t think we get to do bacon grease and gravy these days but it’s a great memory. A tip about green tomatoes in the fall. Don’t waste them!  We used to wrap them in newspaper to ripen. But I found I had to keep opening them up to see if they were ripe.  Recently, I found a better way. 

The best way I’ve found is to spread out an old shower curtain or other piece of plastic, then spread the green and orangey ones out in one layer. Then, cover them all with a couple layers of newspapers. This traps the ethylene gas, same way the old-timers’ wrapping method did, but it’s so much easier to just lift the paper to pull out the ripe  ones.

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