An Even Better BLT and More Sunday Wine Fun

So last time I made a BLT, it was pretty freak­ing awe­some and that was before the height of tomato sea­son. Today I found a decent local Yellow Brandywine tomato at our Kroger of all places and decided I wanted a BLT. But, this time I took it to the next level: Frying. I enjoy fried green toma­toes as much as any south­erner but some­times they are too firm, too young. This tomato’s rich, creamy tex­ture was per­fect for fry­ing. For more pho­tos and recipes, keep reading.

The 12 oz. tomato yielded 6 nice slices. We made a sim­ple dredge of flour & freshly ground black pep­per, egg with about 1/4 tsp. chipo­tle Tabasco and a bread crumb mix­ture with kosher salt and more freshly ground black pep­per. Once dredged, the toma­toes were fried in a lit­tle bit of veg­etable oil for a cou­ple min­utes per side until nicely browned and cooked through.

I used some good multi-grain bread and slathered it with some of my tasty Fresh Cayenne Chipotle Mayo. I set two of the amaz­ing fried tomato discs onto some turkey bacon (I know, I know, but I had to com­pro­mise some­thing con­sid­er­ing I was fry­ing the toma­toes, some­thing about Megan want­ing me to live) and topped it with a mix of fresh field greens.

This Sandwich was so amaz­ingly good and I highly rec­om­mend try­ing it some­time. We had it along side a bowl of Nicole Hamaker’s Chilled Ginger Cantaloupe Soup which was seri­ously delightful.

If you make the soup, try adding a pinch of nut­meg and top it with fresh chopped mint leaves like we did. It really enhances the fla­vor of the can­taloupe and gin­ger. All around a great lunch!

After lunch we did the next step in our wine mak­ing which was to trans­fer the wine from the fer­ment­ing bucket to the glass car­boy. This removes the sed­i­ment and starts the first phase of clarifying.

I’ll keep post­ing from time to time about the wine as we con­tinue the process. It’s a lot of fun and actu­ally turns out pretty great. Well, that’s it for now. I gotta go make some salsa and start a brine on two chick­ens tomor­row that I’m smok­ing for our big Labor Day party. Check back later this week for pic­tured from that. Until then, have a great hol­i­day!