Turn that "sad tomato" frown upside down because Oliver has successfully ripened some of our late summer tomatoes! I want to start with the acknowledgement that fried green tomatoes topped with homemade pimento cheese are not heart healthy. But fortunately they are real food!

If you read the "sad tomato" blog post then you know we ripped out our tomato plants the day before the first predicted frost of the year. Oliver then took the 7.5 lbs of

growing tomatoes and wrapped them in newspaper and placed them in a cardboard box. Ten days later we checked the box. I was so excited to see that some of the tomatoes had continued to ripen! By then it was obvious which tomatoes were going to stay green and which had a chance of becoming perfectly red and plump. We rewrapped the reddening tomatoes and brought all the green ones to the kitchen.

Step one: slice! Step two coat: flour, then egg, then corn meal. Step three: Fry in vegetable oil. (We fry something possibly three times a year so I'm not feeling guilt about enjoying a fried sandwich but I should take the opportunity emphasize - stay away from fried foods!) Oliver then mixed up a homemade pimento cheese and spread it on bread fresh from the Grant Park Farmers Market. He topped it all off with the warm fried green tomatoes. We ate together outside on the freshly painted front porch.

I am so glad we grew those tomatoes. I am even happier Oliver was able to salvage the ones I thought were goners. There is still a box-full ripening and I promise to update as soon as we do something with them!