We hoped that by this time of year, we’d be drowning in fresh produce. Sadly, the excessive heat and rain in June stunted our garden growth. Most of our squash, zucchini and onions are dead. We’re awash in banana and cayenne peppers, and our leeks are looking pretty good. Still, I’ve been salivating over fried green tomatoes since we planted the garden, but our plants just don’t seem to be producing very much. I was pleasantly surprised when I went to a farmer’s market in the Mount Laurel neighborhood near Birmingham, AL, this past weekend, and picked up a sackful of these:

They were all green on Saturday, but by Monday night they were starting to turn. Still, it’s the ripeness that matters, not the skin color.

There are many ways to eat fried green tomatoes. They can be served alone, but they’re often plated with a Cajun rémoulade. The spicy sauce goes so perfect with the sweetness of the tomato. To fry the sliced tomatoes, we:

1. Dredged them in well-seasoned (salt, pepper, cayenne, sugar) flour
2. Dipped them in an egg and cream wash
3. Coated them with a mixture of about 40% bread crumbs and 60% corn meal

We fried the tomatoes in a pan with olive oil and butter, and then put them brown-side-up in the oven to finish them off. You could do it all on the stovetop, but the meat of the tomatoes wouldn’t have enough time to cook. Ours came out of the oven with a good crust and a soft center:

For the dipping sauce, we went with this recipe. It was terrible. Next time, I’m just going to make a roasted red pepper aioli and add some Chachere’s for a little heat.

Purists will serve fried green tomatoes all by themselves, but we like to use them them to make good recipes even better. We fried up some bacon and made BLT sandwiches. I couldn’t let all that bacon fat go to waste, so we also made some pimento cheese roasted potatoes:

And here’s a pimento cheese sandwich with bacon and fried green tomatoes. It’s a delicious three-pronged attack on our arteries:

I didn’t use a couple of the greener tomatoes. I might cook up some mozzarella cheese tomorrow night and make a sweet Caprese salad. I think we have enough basil in the garden for that.

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