Fried Green Tomatoes

Our poor tomato plant. Long gone are the days of perky, bright green leaves and plump, healthy tomatoes growing from the vine. The dog days of summer have taken their toll and the poor thing has gotten too big for its own good; we can't seem to water it enough to bring it back to life. During its last few days, there were still several tomatoes on the vine, stuck in tomato limbo, not getting any bigger or ripening. Instead of trashing the fruits along with the rest of the plant, Eric salvaged the tomatoes and said, "How about we have fried green tomatoes tonight?"

Until then I had been a fried green tomato amateur, but it seemed easy enough; if you know the basics of dredging and frying, you can successfully fry just about anything. I googled "fried green tomatoes" to make sure I wasn't missing some critical step. Paula Deen suggested that I salt the tomato slices and leave them in a collander for half an hour to sweat out the excess water. She also suggested I use buttermilk instead of egg in the dredging process. So I did.

The end result was incredibly tasty, if a bit on the salty side. The tomatoes were sliced about 1/4 inch thick - thin enough to have a good combination of soft tomato on the inside and crispy batter on the outside. I'd have to say that I will definitely make these again.