Fried Green tomatoes

Our school has a ranch run by the Special Education students as part of their Life Skills program.  They sell vegetables from it all summer, and usually have a pumpkin patch for the elementary students.  They grew lots of tomatoes this year, and many are still green.  Because it is time to shut the heat off in the greenhouse, the guy who runs the ranch gave me a bucket and told me to go out and pick what I want.  I did.  I now have a bunch of green tomatoes, and having never eaten "fried green tomatoes" I decided to give them a try.

Here is the recipe I used:  (I looked at about 10 recipes, and most of them were basically the same)

Fried green tomatoes

4 to 6 green tomatoes, cut into 1/4" slices  (some recipes say as thick as 1/2 inch)  I tried both.
2 eggs, beaten
2/3 cup milk
flour for dusting
Panko bread crumbs (or just make cracker crumbs in your food processor so they are really fine)
salt and pepper

In shallow dishes (I used paper plates--- easy cleanup) set up a dipping station: 
1.  flour
2.  eggs with milk mixed in
3.   Panko or cracker crumbs with salt and pepper mixed in

Heat about 1/2" oil in a large frying pan (cast iron is best) to about 375 degrees   (OK.  I did not take the temperature.  Throw in a cracker crumb and when it starts to sizzle, it is probably hot enough)

Coat both sides of each tomato slice with flour, then egg, then crumbs.  Carefully put into hot oil and cook about 3 minutes on each side until lightly browned.  (If it cooks too fast, turn the heat down, and vice versa)  Carefuly lift out of oil and drain on paper towels  (I did this on a paper plate also, stacking them with paper towels between)

If you are doing a bunch of them, you can put each batch into a 200 degree oven to keep them warm while you finish the rest.

Now here is the kicker...  I did not like them.  They are tart like a green apple (which I do not like either)  If you like green apples, you will probably like these.  I think I will let some ripen, and do this with red tomatoes and see how that works.  The problem I see with that is that as they ripen, they lose their stability, so maybe they won't hold together in the oil.  We will see.

Speaking of letting them ripen.....  Before, when we had green tomatoes, we took the entire vine with the tomatoes on it and hung them over the rafters in the cellar.  I do not have the vines this time, so I am going to try something (so they don't all ripen at once).  When I was a kid, we took the green apples off the tree and wrapped them in magazine pages or newspaper and put them in the dark in the cellar.  They ripened a few at a time, and we had apples all winter.  I am going to try that with the tomatoes.  I have read somewhere that it will work, so why not give it a try?  I will let you know what happens.