Sometimes we just need good food to encourage our spirit as well as feed our body. Feeling a little down or merely a little blah? Check out today’s blog post to give your body and your spirit a food boost! And I’m not talking about reaching for a candy bar!

My container garden,  which sits right outside my kitchen door, has produced an abundance of cucumbers and tomatoes this year. There have been plenty of cucumbers for canning sweet Bread and Butter Pickles. And plenty to enjoy fresh–drizzled with olive oil, apple cider vinegar, and salt and pepper to serve as a side dish with any summer supper.

Vying for most scrumptious garden “vegetable,” or some people say “fruit,” is the home grown tomato. I canned some of these also. And for a while I was eating tomatoes with every meal. Even breakfast was a delight out on the patio with a boiled egg, a slice of toast with butter, a mandarin orange and a few freshly picked cherry tomatoes.

However, with lots of green tomatoes on the vine and my interest in canning waning, I decided to take some time recently to prepare Fried Green Tomatoes. Preparation is simple but that and cooking take about an hour; even so their tangy unusual flavor does make it worth the extra effort. Should a family member or friend come by, as happened to me, the effort is doubly rewarding as good food to share is always a pleasure.

Here’s the Fried Green Tomato Recipe straight from one of the children’s books in my Nonny Day Series: SWEET PICKLES AMONG THE MARIGOLDS. Enjoy it here and maybe be tempted to take a peek into this book on amazon.com.

Next, here’s a tomato recipe fixed without much preparation that was a favorite with my children when they were growing up and is now a favorite of my grandchildren. An older child may even enjoy working in the kitchen with you.

Ingredients are listed without quantities as it just depends on how many green tomatoes you have at your disposal. As there were five of us when all of my family was at home and delicious Fried Green Tomatoes were a culinary delight, we counted the total number of slices and divided by five before setting the serving dish on the table. So, for example, I might say, “Twenty slices. You each get four! No more!”

FABULOUS KENTUCKY FRIED GREEN TOMATOES

Ingredients:

• green tomatoes sliced about a ¼ inch in thickness
• an egg (or more) well beaten with a fork
• flour with salt and pepper to taste or Kentucky Kernel Flour,
• any vegetable oil (today my favorite is olive oil)
• margarine or butter

Preparation:

Put 3 or 4 skillets on the stove top (depending on how many tomato slices you are going to fry) with about a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil.

While pans and oil are getting hot, dip the tomato slices first in the bowl of a well beaten egg, then dredge the slices in a shallow plate of seasoned flour.

Place tomato slices individually in the hot pans, without over-lapping. Turn slices with a fork several times as slices soften, adding more vegetable oil and a little butter as you near the end of the process. The butter gives the dish a great flavor. But if you add it too soon, the butter will blacken before the slices are done. Warning: you do have to stay right at the stove. No walking away as the slices require diligent attention!

When the tomato slices have softened and there is a golden crust on the outside, remove them from the pan onto a plate lined with a couple of paper towels to drain 2-3 minutes. Place on a serving dish.

Serve warm and bask in warm compliments!

Food to Warm the Spirit as Well as the Body
Connie Carlisle Polley, 2020
ConnieCarlislePolley.com
NonnyDay.com