I’ve recently discovered a wonderful little country store that often has baskets of local produce. I stopped in recently and was delighted to find that they had beautiful green tomatoes fresh from the farm. I’ve loved fried green tomatoes in my heart since the first time I saw Idgie and Ruth frying them up at the Whistle Stop Cafe on the big screen. But my real-life experience with them has been quite limited, and, until now, I’ve had no experience at all with cooking them. But I’m an adventurer, so I took them home and decided to wing it. And I lucked up because they came out perfectly on the first attempt.

Here’s my recipe:

2 firm green tomatoes

1 1/2 cups half and half

1 egg

1 cup cornmeal

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1 Tbsp. cayenne pepper

1 tsp. black pepper

2 tsp. paprika

Vegetable oil

Salt to taste

1. In a bowl, whisk together the egg and half and half.

2. Cut the tomatoes into thick slices. I got three slices out of each tomato.

3. Soak the tomatoes in the half and half mixture for 15-20 minutes.

4. Combine flour, cornmeal, paprika, pepper, and cayenne pepper in a large Ziploc bag.

5. Put the soaked tomatoes in the Ziploc bag, and shake the bag until the tomatoes are nicely coated.

6. Heat the oil in a skillet on medium-high heat. On my stove, this was a “7.”

7. Place the tomatoes in the oil, and cook them until they are a gorgeous golden brown.

8. Drain on a paper towel.

9. Salt to taste.

Let me know if you try this out!