Fried Green Tomato...Salad

This summer has been rough on our tomato plants. First we had scorching heat. Then we got a full month of rain. Now summer is dragging into fall and our tomatoes are limping to the finish line. After getting a pretty good initial crop, a good deal of which was lost to thirsty squirrels and birds, the second wave of tomatoes were splitting as soon as they even considered turning red. I finally gave up on about half of the plants and pulled them out to make room for some fall greens.

One of the ways I have been coping with these tomato challenges is to embrace the fried green tomato. There are countless recipes and techniques for making these little treats. But the basic idea in all of them is to dredge the slices in some combination of milk, egg, breadcrumbs, flour and/or cornmeal and then fry them up in vegetable oil. I think I probably use a different "recipe" every time. I only have two pieces of green tomato frying advice: 1st Salt the tomato slices, let them sit for 15 minutes or so and blot off the water and 2nd double dredge them (i.e. coat them in flour, then a milk/egg, then breadcrumbs/cornmeal).

The last time I made these treats, I put them on top of a salad. Amazingly good. I used the recipe for the cilantro lime dipping sauce to make a salad dressing.