Throw Back Thursday: Fried Green Tomatoes

Welcome to #TBT! Wow, this week has gone by fast!  I can't believe that it is Thursday all ready.  My recipe is really all about the batter.  This is a recipe that my mom gave me more than 20 years ago, and it is one that she has used ever since I can remember. 

Growing up, my parents always had a garden. Always. And I have great memories of summers helping them in the garden, with weeding, picking, canning, and of course eating!  One thing we always had an abundance of was zucchini and squash.  There are many different ways that my mom would fix these, but my favorite would be breaded and fried!

And of course, as soon as the tomatoes turned green and were big enough to pick, we would pick a few just to make fried green tomatoes.  We wouldn't pick too many, because we would want the majority to stay on the vine and ripen and then we would can those.  We would either can them as whole tomatoes, to eat in the winter time or put in soups and chili, or we would make tomato juice which is my favorite!

I would really like to be able to say that the vegetables that I used in this recipe were from our garden.  Alas, with the amount of rain that we received just in the past month (almost 15 inches!) our garden is not doing very well.  The squash came from Tennessee from my Uncle's neighbor.  It was a gift given to us when we were visiting. The tomatoes came from our local farmer's market.  I am very thankful that some people's garden is doing ok.

Here is a copy of the recipe as my mother wrote it. You can tell that it has been used a couple of times. I did not use corn oil for frying.  I used coconut oil and my cast iron skillet.  I did not use 1 quart of oil either.  If you notice my mom's note, she doesn't use this much oil.  You can use this batter for any veggies that you want, and my mom has even used it for boneless chicken breast.  It is super easy to make and very delicious!  You may need to adjust the amount of salt to your liking.  I actually had to add a little more and we aren't salt people.

My mama's recipe

So here are the ingredients minus the vegetables.  You can see that it is nothing fancy and all items that you probably already have in your pantry anyway.  Those are the recipes that I love!

Ingredients for the batter

And here are the lovely vegetables.  You can see the ray of light on them, intensifying their beauty. ;-)

Yummy veggies - also good to eat just like this!

 

I didn't take a picture of the batter.  It really is just basic, you throw everything into a bowl and mix it together.  Then you dip the veggies in the batter and fry them up.  Here they are frying.

Sizzle, sizzle...

You can tell when they need to be turned, because they start to get golden brown on the edge.  You can also see from the picture that I did not use a lot of oil.  Just enough to coat the bottom of the pan.  I really don't like them swimming in oil.  I did have to add oil twice before I was done. 

And now for the finished product!  They were really good, and we had this whole plate eaten in no time.  The kids loved them!  The tomatoes were actually sweet, and the batter was savory, so it was a good combination.

Nom, nom, nom

How many of you have already fixed fried green tomatoes?  If you haven't try out this recipe and let me know how you like it!  Even though this batter is great on a multitude of veggies, I do have another recipe for onion rings that I like better.  I might just share that with you sometime soon. ;-)

Want a printable recipe?  Then just click HERE.

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