Fried Green Tomatoes

This is quite possibly the corniest and most cliche thing ever, but I recently watched Fried Green Tomatoes for the first time.  What?  You haven't seen it?  Well, it's a cute movie.  And it made me want to try making my own fried green tomatoes.

 I have had fried green tomatoes before, but I had never made them.  Until now.

Then, when I was at the farmer's market last week there was a man selling green tomatoes!  Perfect.  Except later, as they started to turn red on my window sill, I would find out these were not actual green tomatoes, just unripened regular tomatoes.  Rookie mistake.  I will find real green tomatoes (an heirloom variety) before the summer is over.  But that is another post.

Fried Green Tomatoes
Makes 6 fried green tomato slices
Start to finish: 15 minutes

2 green tomatoes
1/3 cup cornmeal
1/3 cup + 1/2 cup white all purpose flour
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
1/4 cup milk
2 Tbsp canola oil (assuming you use a small pan

I must say I was shocked that something so delicious could be so easy to make.  The instructions are simple.  Set up a dredging station with three plates.  In one plate, combine the cornmeal, flour, salt and pepper.  In the second plate, pour the milk.  In the third plate, pour the remaining flour.

Slice your tomatoes half an inch thick.  You should get about three slices per tomato.  Salt and pepper them generously.  Coat the bottom of a medium skillet with canola oil and place over medium-high heat. Because of the size of my pan, I only needed about 2 tablespoons of oil to coat the bottom of the pan.

Coat the tomatoes in flour, followed by milk and cornmeal mixture.
  

Place them in your skillet and let them sizzle, undisturbed for 2 minutes.  You want them to get golden and crusty.  Turn them over and repeat the process.

At this point, they are ready to eat.  What a great side item for just about any meal or appetizer!  You can probably make these faster than I could type this post.