Fried Green Tomatoes: The food, not the movie

Well, Anni and I finally made the treck down to my mom's house to soak up some of these Indian Summer rays of sunshine. While we were there, we just had to take advantage of mom's late crop of tomatoes and blueberries. Mom showed me her tricks to the most juicy, crunchy fried green tomatoes, and I tested out a recipe for blueberry cake. 

I mean, look at this beauty.

Of course, I had hoped that my first recipe post would be my grandma's cornbread, but I feel like we are in a race to savor this late crop of tomatoes. Hopefully next week I'll be able to share a tomato pie recipe that I found in an old Mississippi cook book. I'm so excited about that one! 

Here we go: 

First, you want to slice your tomatoes thinly, but not too thin. Just enough to be fleshy and juicy, and not so thick that they make the batter soggy. 

Gorgeous!

You want to be heating your oil in a cast iron skillet on medium high heat. Use just enough oil as to not overlap the tomatoes. You'll know it's ready when a bit of batter dropped into the oil begins to sizzle. Like this: 

For the batter, whisk together one egg, about 1/3 c. of milk, salt, pepper, garlic powder to taste. It's not an exact science, trust me. Set that bowl aside. In a separate bowl, mix together self rising flour (we used Martha White), salt, pepper, creole seasoning (I prefer Tony's), and garlic powder all to taste. We prefer lots of pepper. Dip the tomato slices into the egg mixture first, then dredge them through the flour mixture, and repeat to give it a double layer of crunch. Drop into the hot oil, being sure to drop in a motion away from your body so as not to splatter the oil. 

Mom tip: don't over crowd the pan with tomatoes--which means, don't allow them to touch. Like so: 

Bubbly, greasy goodness.

Fry tomatoes for a couple minutes on each side. We're not trying to cook it through, just crisping up that golden, delicious batter. When the tomatoes are done, transfer to a plate lined with paper towels to drain. For your consecutive batches, keep an eye on the temperature of the oil. This is where I usually run into my issues. After the first batch, the oil will get hotter and hotter, so just keep tweaking the dial to keep that oil under control. Allow the tomatoes to rest for a couple minutes--you don't want a mouth full of hot green tomato juice--and we're all done! The perfect appetizer or side dish for your Indian Summer lunch: 

Mississippi Gold

And for that blueberry cake, you can find the recipe I used here. The only thing I would suggest that the recipe leaves out is to drizzle a glaze over the top when it's fresh out of the oven. The cake itself wasn't all that sweet--but maybe that's just my Mississippi sweet tooth talkin'. It was a great use for all those blueberries we can't seem to get rid of, and it makes for a wonderful breakfast cake. 

For the glaze: 

1 cup of confectioners sugar

1 & 1/2 tblsp water or milk

1/4 tspn vanilla extract

Whisk all together and drizzle over cake with a spoon. 

Coat the berries in a tblsp of flour--how pretty!
 

I only had time to dust with powdered sugar. Later on, I added the glaze.

So that's it for this week! Me and Anni had so much fun at Mom's house. She, along with most of my family, live about an hour south of us, out in the country. It's nice to get away from city--especially in the heat of summer when all the asphalt seems to intensify the humidity and temperature. 

Next week, I'll try my hand at that tomato pie. Honestly, I've never had one but I'm so excited to try! I always do a mad dash for produce around this time of year, before the prices go up and the quality goes down. 

Thanks for reading! See ya'll next week! 

Love and Cornbread, 

Amber

Mom holding Anniston while I fed her raspberries.