A Trip To The Farmer's Market

Every Wednesday our city has a Farmer's Market downtown where I love to go and purchase fresh produce. This week I asked my dear hubby if he would like to come along with me. He has been pretty much home bound since his back surgery the end of October and I knew he was ready to get out of the house. It is very painful for him if he has to sit or stand for very long so this quick trip seemed like the perfect opportunity.

While visiting one of the farmer's booths we found the most beautiful green tomatoes! Now my boys-everyone of them-LOVE fried green tomatoes. Monroe and I had to have a basket of these beauties. We could taste fried tomatoes just looking at them! Happy with our purchase, we went on to the other produce stands and finished our shopping.

On our way to the truck we both realized that just one basket (4 tomatoes) would not be enough to feed our family. But at $3.50 per basket I was not ready to buy any more. However, my husband was not going to leave without another basket of tomatoes. Now you must understand how our grocery budget works. Basically, Monroe has NO idea how to stretch our money when it comes to food. I have always bought the groceries and he never. ever. goes with me to the grocery store. I didn't argue with him though and we went right back over to the booth with the green tomatoes and bought yet another basket. $7.00 for a side dish people!! I would never pay that much for a vegetable for one meal. I glanced over at my business partner. Humpf-he wasn't worried about it one bit. "Do you realize we just paid $7.00 for one meal of tomatoes?" I asked. "Oh well, they(our boys) are worth it." was his reply. And that was the end of it.

We went home and had fried green tomatoes for lunch and they were just as delicious as we thought they would be!!

I decided to show how I make mine in case this blog has inspired someone out there to give fried green tomatoes a try. First of all, start with very hard and green tomatoes otherwise they get all soft and mushy when frying. Wash and slice them. Then salt and pepper.


Next I mix one part cornmeal and one part flour. Then coat each tomato in this mixture.

Get your grease, I use peanut oil or homemade lard, nice and hot and gently lay the slices into the grease. If you get your oil too hot the flour that settles in the bottom of the pan tends to burn and that causes the tomatoes to taste burnt. Lightly brown on each side and that's all there is to it! Oh, if you have cast iron ware this is one of the foods you just have to cook in cast iron! There is no comparison to the end result.....really!

And here they are crispy, hot and oh so delicious!
How do you cook your fried green tomatoes?

Hmmm....it is almost time to make a trip to the grocery store. Note to self: Do not ask hubby to come along ;-)