Sweet Fried Green Tomatoes

Fried Green Tomatoes

Usually you make fried green tomatoes in the fall when some of the tomatoes don't turn green before the first frost. We transplanted a bunch of tomatoes late, so they already had little baby green tomatoes on them. We had to pick the green tomatoes so that the plant would put energy into establishing its roots and putting out a full crop of tomatoes later. It seemed like a waste to just compost all of those baby tomatoes... so obviously we decided to fry them. I can't quite remember why we decided to make them sweet, maybe because we had already had dinner?

This was an experiment, and I am not sure I would actually repeat it. The tomatoes were tasty, but they were tasty in the way that all fried foods are tasty. I don't know that they really added any tomato-y-ness to the final project. But should you find yourself which a bunch of tiny green tomatoes that you simply can't throw away, this is probably as good of a use as any.

Fried Green Tomatoes - before they were fried

Sweet Fried Green Tomatoes
Lots of small green tomatoes, washed and sliced in half
1/2 cup corn meal
1/4 sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
a pinch of salt
1 egg beaten
1/4 milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
Vegetable Oil


Mix cornmeal, sugar, cinnamon, and salt. In a separate bowl mix egg, milk, and vanilla. Heat oil to medium high. Dip tomatoes in egg mixture and then corn mixture. Place tomatoes halves in oil. Flip after about 30 seconds, or when the first side is suitably brown. Cook until the second side is suitably brown. I think they would have been extra good over vanilla ice cream.

Tomato Soup + Grilled Cheese

I'll give you the punchline quick: the key to any good creamy soup is... cream cheese! This applies to tomato soup, but I have also had great success with cauliflower soup, broccoli soup and many others. I think cream cheese, even low fat cream cheese, gives soup a really nice creamy texture when compared to milk.

This is more or less an original recipe if you can really call it a recipe. In terms of the goals of this blog: cheap, quick, and local (and healthy) this meal does fairly well. It's definitely fast, and I would say healthy, you could use local tomatoes (I didn't). I did use organic tomatoes and I am pretty sure it still comes out fairly inexpensive.

Garlic infused olive oil from PD Farms!

Tomato Soup

1/2 cup chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cans tomatoes
1 tsp basil
1 tsp honey
1/4 cup cream cheese

Saute onion in olive oil until onions are translucent. Add garlic and saute an additional 30 seconds. Add tomatoes an other ingredients (except for cream cheese) and simmer 20 to 30 minutes. Taste and adjust flavors if necessary. I don't usually add salt because there is quite a bit in most canned tomatoes, but if you used no "salt added" tomatoes you might want to.

About this much basil

Puree soup. I use an immersion blender which I highly recommend, but any blender works. Add cream cheese and heat until cream cheese is melted.





Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

mmmm cheese and roasted peppers

Again, not sure if this constitute a recipe, but there is something about a good sandwich, especially a good grilled cheese sandwich. For this one I used whole grain bread, extra sharp cheddar and roasted red peppers. I really like roasted red peppers on grilled cheese.