Fried Green Tomato Salade

Farmer's Market Day 

We hauled in a lovely basket of goodies.

I am going to make zucchini fritters with the squash,

Bruschetta with the lovely tomatoes and baby onions,

and a Cesare salade with that Gorgeous Romain lettuce.

I'm most excited about fried green tomatoes.

Fried green tomatoes in a salade is a match made in heaven.  

We love our veggies.

In the summer time, that translates into salades

Lots of salades.

We get very creative with them.

Today I making Fried Green Tomato Salade with goat cheese and a reduced Balsamic Dressing.

 That's a delicious mouthful.

Board of ingredients:

• Lettuce
• Bread crumbs
• Olive Oil
• Balsamic Vinegar
• Vegetable or Canola Oil for Frying
• Green Tomatoes
• Flour
• Goat Cheese
• Eggs
• Shallot
• Parmesan Cheese
• Salt
• Pepper

{I cannot eat gluten...and these were the only bread crumbs I had on hand.}

{Use regular bread crumbs for your recipe.}

To begin, we need to start the balsamic so it can reduce.

Reduced balsamic is thick, sweet and one of my favorite things ever.

{Try it on strawberries with a bit of whipped cream.}

{Trust me!}

I am making four salads so I need about a cup of balsamic.

I am going to reduce the vinegar by about half.

Put the vinegar over medium low heat and let it simmer very gently until it is reduced.

Next, start the oil.

I just use a pot on the stove.

You can get as fancy as you want.

Put the oil over a medium/medium high heat.

You want the oil to shimmer and move in the pan, but you don't want it to smoke.

Now we prepare to bread.

Flour, salt and pepper in one bowl.

Beaten eggs in the next bowl.

Bread crumbs, salt, pepper and a couple tablespoons of parm.

Mix 'em up and we are good to go.

Now, green tomatoes do not have a good texture.

They are very firm and we don't want crunchy tomatoes in our salade.

So, in order to get them fully cooked in the oil, we need to slice the tomatoes very thin.

{That's the most important tip to making good fried green tomatoes!}

Time to get messy.

First they go in the flour.

Tap the excess flour off.

Next, send them for a swim in the egg.

They go right from the egg into the crumbs.

:-)

That is beautiful.

Keep going.

Once our tomaters are breaded and ready to go, let's check the oil.

You can use a thermometer if you want.

{I don't.}

Toss a bit of the breading into the oil and see what it does.

If it doesn't bubble up, the oil is not hot enough.

I needed to turn my oil up.

If you are using a thermometer, bring your oil up to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

This is what you want to see when you drop something in oil to deep fry it.

My daughter says the oil is cheering.

I think that's adorable.

I use this thing, called a spider, when I am deep frying.

It's a Japanese cooking tool, but you can find them everywhere.

I highly recommend one for scooping stuff out of hot oil and letting it drain a bit.

Look at that!

If it was not so hot and if I did not need to take it's picture, I would have eaten it already.

But don't expect that one to make it to the salades.

Part of cooking is quality control and I am fully prepared to sample so that I can be sure to serve nothing but the best to my family.

;-)

Okay, vinegar.

This is a horrible picture.

But, you can see the vinegar coating the edge of the pan.

You want your vinegar to be the consistency of agave nectar.

If you get it too thick, add a bit of vinegar to even it out.

If it is too thin, keep cooking it.

Add the reduced balsamic to a small bowl.

Add a bit of olive oil.

Add a pinch of salt and pepper.

Then whisk like crazy.

You want the vinegar and oil to emulsify.

At first it will look terrible, but keep going.

It will come together and it will be so worth it.

Now we have everything ready to make our salade.

The lettuce is cut up and washed, the goat cheese is crumbled and the shallot is chopped.

Layer one, lettuce.

Layer two, onion.

Layer three, goat cheese.

Layer four, fried green tomatoes.

Layer five, parm.

Layer six, dressing.

Use plenty of dressing.

Eat immediately.

Farmer's Market Fresh Turnips

It is a thrill for us to go the to farmer's market on Saturday Mornings.

We wander around and look at everything before we purchase.

Then we get a treat like a cup of coffee, an egg roll or a caramel.

Then we shop.

Then we go home and I make something yummy for lunch while the kids mow the lawn.

Look at our lovely bounty this week.

I am most excited to be making turnips.

We LOVE turnips.

But they have to be caramelized.

It's so, so good.

So, we start with our board of ingredients as usual.

• Turnips
• Olive Oil
• Butter
• Salt 
• Pepper

We start to prep these little beauties by chopping off their little tail.

Then their tops get chopped off.

Then we peel them.

Then we dice.

Then we season with salt and pepper.

I apologize for the over exposed picture of butter.

I can do better.  

I promise never to do this again.

Anyway, a bit of olive oil and a couple bits of butter go in a non stick pan.

When the butter is melted and swirled around in the olive oil,

Add the turnips.

Start cooking them over medium high heat.

I'm here to tell you it takes a long time.

But it's worth it.

(By a long time, I mean longer than my attention span.)

(The only reason the turnips don't burn is because my daughter takes over stirring and watching.)

(She will be a much better cook than I am because she is patient.)

Now this is what I am talking about.

Those dark brown spots are the best.

Oh, yummy!

If you want to gild the lily, and sometimes I do, add a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese on top.

FYI, when you cook turnips this way, they shrink down.

Six turnips made about four small servings.

FYI, I could have eaten this all by myself.

I didn't...this time.

:-)

Homemade Pop Tarts

Nickolas - This one is for you!

A few weekends ago, we had a work weekend here at Willow Cottage.

Everyone had a job to do.

Kids put the dock into the water.

I planted the garden.

Hubby was trimming, weeding and putting mulch down.

 I was so excited that the kids are old enough to do the dock on their own this year.

I was also so excited about getting all this work done.

I always say that I feed my workers.

So before I went to put the garden in, I thought it would be good to whip up a little treat.

I made homemade pop tarts.
I hate pop tarts with a passion.
But homemade ones are really good eats.
Of course you can use store bought pie crust, but I made my own.

The board of ingredients:

• Extra flour for rolling out the pie dough
• Jelly 
• Powdered Sugar Glaze
• Pie Crust

- I am using the pie crust recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything

The trick to a successful pie crust experience is using plenty of flour.

Once you get the crust rolled out, cut the dough.
You could certainly use a pizza cutter and make square or rectangular tarts.
I thought I would go really fancy and make round tarts.

Lay out the bottom layer of dough on the cookie sheets.
Don't over crowd the cookie sheet.

Spread a dollop of jelly around the middle of the tart.
I used a heaping teaspoon for a four inch circle.
If you add too much jelly it will just run out of the tart and onto the cookie sheet during baking.

This is how I added the top layer.

I know you can't see this, but I dipped my finger in water and rubbed the outer edge of pie dough.

Add another layer of dough.
Try not to capture a bunch of air in between the two layers.

Press the edges down with a fork.

Add a little slit to the top with a sharp knife.

Bake the pop tarts for roughly twenty minutes or until they begin to get golden brown around the edges.

Now it's time to spread a nice thick glaze over the top of the hot tarts.

I just added a little dab of glaze to the top and let it melt down the edges.
You could get fancier if you wanted to with a piping bag.
Some colored sugar would also add a bit of fun color.

Start piling them up because I promise everyone will love these guys.

Homemade Pop Tarts

Ingredients:

Jelly of choice
Pie Crust
Flour
1 Cup Powdered Sugar
1/4 Teaspoon Vanilla
Super Tiny Pinch of Salt
Drizzle of Milk

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 350° F.
2. Dust cutting board or counter with flour.  Roll out the pie crust until very thin.  Cut dough into uniform shapes of your choice and lay on cookie sheet.
3.  Add one teaspoon jelly to center of crust.
4.  Run a wet finger around the outer edge of the dough.
5.  Lay the second shape over the bottom crust with jelly.
6.  Crimp edges together with a fork.
7.  Cut a tiny slit in the center of the top crust.
8.  Bake for fifteen to twenty minutes or until golden brown.
9. Meanwhile, add powdered sugar, salt and vanilla to a small bowl.  Add a few drops of milk and stir.  Keep adding a couple drops of milk until you get a very stiff glaze.  The glaze should be so stiff you can barely stir it.
10.  When the tarts come out of the oven, spread glaze on the top and let the glaze melt onto the tart.
11.  Enjoy!  Serving sizes vary according to size of the tarts you make.

I am linking to Foody Friday at Rattlebridge Farm and On The Menu Monday at Stone Gable.