Mmmmmm mmmmm good!

What to do with a multitude of gleaned tomatoes from the CSA? We didn't get any tomatoes in our share this week but were told we could go out to the fields and take what we wanted. We picked pounds of under and over ripe tomatoes with plans on making sauce and roasting some. Inspired by a woman we met in the field, J picked four big green tomatoes so we could make fried green tomatoes even though neither have of us have ever had them and I had no idea how to make them.

After browsing a dozen or so recipes online, I decided to make a hybrid of the recipes and go it on my own since it seems pretty straightforward. Here is what I did:

1. Sliced the tomatoes, salted them and let them sweat for an hour or so. I dried them off a bit with a flour sack towel.
2. Heated up about half an inch of canola oil. I have never, ever fried anything before so I wasn't quite sure how to do this. I did it in a large, shallow straight side pan with a lid.
3. Dipped some of the tomatoes in egg white, and some I left naked.
4. Dipped all the tomatoes in a mixture of flour, cornmeal, salt and pepper. I used more flour than cornmeal but I think I would reverse the ratios in the future or use just cornmeal.
5. Threw the tomatoes about five slices at a time in the oil.
6. Ate them.

They turned out great. At least, we thought they were good (although neither of us have anything to compare them to). I don't want to get into a frying habit but if I'm going to pour that much oil in a pan again I think it would have to be for green tomatoes.

(The picture doesn't look nearly as good as they tasted. The tomatoes in this picture are day old and served on sourdough bread for lunch.)