Fried Green Tomatoes

I've been volunteering at Left Foot Organics for the last few months while I look for a job in the greater Olympia area.  They work with low income youth and developmentally disabled members of the community by providing work and leadership opportunities.  It is a pretty cool organization and it has been a nice way to keep from going stir crazy while LJ is at work.

A few weeks back we had a lunch party at the farm for one of the employees last day.  Someone made fried green tomatoes from the farm and having never lived outside of Washington it was my first experience with them.  They are tough to describe but if I had to try I would go with "deliciously tangy."  They are also incredibly easy to make.

Only five ingredients and I probably could have done without the half and half but since I had it around anyway I figured it couldn't hurt to include it.

I sliced the tomatoes, trying to keep them somewhere between a quarter and half inch thick.  After slicing I sprinkled salt on each side of the tomato and set them on top of a paper towel to draw out some of the moisture.

I mixed the flour and cornmeal in one dish and the egg and half & half in another.  I first dipped a slice into the egg and then into the flour.  I'm a master batterer (sp?) from my time working at Skipper's in high school but if you've never done it the key is to use one hand while working in the wet dish and the other hand for the dry dish.

I dropped the slices in to my trusty cast iron skillet which had about a quarter inch of oil in it.  When I fry vegetables (my favorite way to eat them) I find keeping the heat on medium does the job perfectly.  Frying zucchini in this fashion as well is a wonderful way to get through the summer bounty that always comes.

I sprinkled these with a little bit of salt after resting them on a paper towel to drain.  They were such a treat that I'm already on the lookout for where I can find a few more before all the plants freeze.