What to do with Green tomatoes?

Fried Green Tomatoes

If you’ve been out to any of the Farmer’s Markets or out door markets, you must have noticed it’s ‘Tomato” season. They’re everywhere. Check out the cooking websites and cooking blogs there’s an abundance of recipe ideas for tomatoes.

If you don’t want to fry in the heat of the Las Vegas, the more ethnic supermarkets carry a great range of more interesting produce.

As the tomatoes I was trying to grow either started to split before they turned red or flatly refused to go red. So “Fried Green Tomatoes came to the rescue. I became hooked on these after watching a couple of movies where fried green tomatoes seemed to be the central theme. Obviously the movie “Fried Green Tomatoes” and “The Secret Life of Bees”

Here’s the recipe I use. I know everyone’s Granny has her own secret recipe, this one works for me.

A very satisfying feeling to go out to your tomato patch and pick a few garden fresh tomatoes. In 15 minutes or so you are eating your very own produce for breakfast. 

Fried Green Tomatoes with Red Onion

Ingredients

1/2-cup flour

1/4 teaspoon kosher or sea salt

1 pinch freshly ground black pepper

2 eggs or 1 egg with egg white to top up the mixture

2 tablespoons water or 1% milk

1-cup cornmeal or Wheat germ.

2 Biggish green tomatoes sliced into 1/2-inch-thick slices.

Number depending how many you have to feed.

Olive or canola oil as needed

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste.

Optional

Garnish: ¼ cup low fat sour cream and 2 tablespoons minced red onion.

**I liked the sour cream but the onion taste stayed with me all day**

The Method

Heat the oven to 425°.

I cook these fine in my small grill oven. Waste less energy. Also keeps the kitchen area cooler.

In a shallow bowl or pie plate, combine flour, salt, and pepper.

Beat together the eggs and water; I used 1% milk; pour the mixture into another shallow dish or pie plate.

Pour cornmeal into a third shallow dish. Coat each tomato slice with flour (shake off excess), then egg, then cornmeal.

In a skillet over medium-high heat, pour a thin layer of oil to completely cover the bottom of the skillet. Pan-fry the coated tomato slices until golden brown, about 2 minutes on each side. Lay them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, (I used kitchen foil with a brushing of oil)

Season with salt and pepper.

Place in the oven to finish cooking, about 8 minutes.

The black looking object isn't one a I burnt. It a dark portobello mushroom. Honest!

Place tomato slices on serving plates or a large platter, then top with sour cream and red onion.

Keep warm or serve immediately.

For added touch of class you can add a side of mushrooms and grilled bacon. Pork or turkey.

For us trying to drop a few pounds: Only use one egg and add enough egg white to top up the egg mixture; Use whole meal flour; wheat germ instead cornmeal.

Healthy Snack Time

Hungry when you’re finished at the gym and fed up with extortionate price of a smoothie or sandwich at the gym.

 Or just need a healthy snack during the morning.

Make your own smoothie, they ‘re really easy if we’re not too lazy to make them. It takes longer to clean the processor/blender than it does to make them.

What you’ll need;

A food processor or blender, a good blender is not that expensive and doesn’t take up too much room.

What to use:

Low fat plain yoghurt. You could get flavoured but plain is better.

Low fat milk.

Wheat germ (a healthy option);

Honey, optional.

Bananas

Frozen berries such as strawberries, blue berries or any that take your fancy.

Optional, a melon, not water melon. Believe it not watermelon is packed with sugar according to the Low GI brigade.

Method;

Put the yoghurt and a banana in the blender with the frozen berries you choose just strawberries or a cocktail. Experiment. The honey if you use.

Blend all this together, add some milk if you think it’s too thick.

Add a dessertspoon of wheat germ and blend till mixed in. Wheat germ is full of all sorts of good stuff, vitamin E and folic acid. No sodium or cholesterol.

Add more if you don’t mind the taste, it’s supposed to give you more vitality. Energy.

You can add it to just about anything you eat or cook.

One thing to remember, it’s still alive if you can imagine a plant still alive. Once you’ve opened it you have to keep it the fridge. You’d be surprised what will start crawling around in it. Nothing harmful.

I didn’t know this when I first bought it. I was living in the Middle East then. To my horror I found all these crawly things in my food cupboard. My cupboards needed a clean out anyway.

I still eat it though and full of vitality.

A healthy sandwich;

Banana and peanut butter on whole meal or multi grain bread. Bananas are at there best when you start to get brown speckles on the skin, they go over quite quickly after this, but still okay for your smoothie.

Just spread over the sliced banana and peanut butter, have it topless or with a top on.

This is great toasted as well for the afternoon or mid-morning snack.

You could sprinkle over a teaspoon of wheat germ for good measure.

Another sandwich;

You’ll need a pitta bread per person.

Fresh lemon juice, olive oil.

White cabbage, parsley,  celery, tomato.

A healthy meat choice to your liking, turkey breast maybe.

Salad cream or mayonnaise, salad cream is a British thing. We do have Hellimans mayonnaise in the UK but I prefer salad cream.

In Las Vegas the best place to buy it is the ‘Fresh & Easy store. They stock a good supply of British stuff at a reasonable price.

Http://www.freshandeasy.com

Make a Cypriot style salad of chopped cabbage, stick or two of celery and chopped parsley. Mix together with the lemon juice, go easy on the lemon juice and olive oil.

Warm the pitta bread either in the microwave or under the grill (broiler). Not too much, you need to keep the bread soft. Just enough so you can split the bread and spread on the salad cream or mayonnaise and fill with the salad, tomato and meat.

If the warmed bread stayed soft enough you should be able to fold or roll.