This, That and the Southern Thing

Well, it's taken me a few days to get back here after the blog hop last week (which I hope you enjoyed, by the way.) On Thursday and Friday, I had to fly to Louisiana in the midst of massive flooding here in Central Pennsylvania. Luckily, the travel part of it worked out fine - I got there and back safely, and had an awesome time in between.

Since I got back, I can't stop frying up green tomatoes. They're not exactly a typical food here in PA, but every time I head south of here, I seem to regress into some kind of fried green tomato obsession. Luckily, I have an overabundance of them in my garden. The tomatoes never really got ripe this year, which I'd been lamenting up until now. On Sunday, I pulled a recipe off the internet, and it turned out to be a fantastic one. They turned out just like the ones I had in Baton Rouge, so I've decided to share the recipe with you.

BEST FRIED GREEN TOMATOES (from AllRecipes.com)

Ingredients:
4 large green tomatoes
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cornmeal

1/2 cup bread crumbs
2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 quart vegetable oil for frying

Directions:

1. Slice tomatoes 1/2 inch thick. Discard the ends.

2. Whisk eggs and milk together in a medium-size bowl. Scoop flour onto a plate. Mix cornmeal, bread crumbs and salt and pepper on another plate. Dip tomatoes into flour to coat. Then dip the tomatoes into milk and egg mixture. Dredge in breadcrumbs to completely coat.

3. In a large skillet, pour vegetable oil (enough so that there is 1/2 inch of oil in the pan) and heat over a medium heat. Place tomatoes into the frying pan in batches of 4 or 5, depending on the size of your skillet. Do not crowd the tomatoes, they should not touch each other. When the tomatoes are browned, flip and fry them on the other side. Drain them on paper towels.

To memorialize my fried green tomato obsession, I even created an Etsy treasury (because Etsy treasuries, of course, are currently my way of procrastinating when I don't want to do anything more productive.)



Delicious, eh? And perfect for September. While we're at it, I also made this one on the same day, and then realized that I'd coincidentally made two treasuries named after old movies, neither of which had anything to do with film:



At any rate, fall is definitely in the air here. It has been for awhile now, but to be honest, there's only one thing that ever makes it sink in for me that fall is really here - the return of all my TV shows. This week starts most of the CWTV shows, including one of my very favorites, the Vampire Diaries. The end of True Blood this past Sunday night will be ameliorated by the return of Elena, Damon, Stefan, Caroline, et al. Last season ended with a huge bang, so I can't wait to see what happpens this year - and is anyone else excited to see Damon finally step up and be the "good" vampire for a change?

Anyway...

The last thing I have to mention tonight is that I've recently been featured over on Artsnark's Artifacts.  As you know, Stacey, otherwise known as Artsnark, is one of my very favorite Etsy artists and has contributed significantly to my growing ACEO collection.  She has been kind enough to feature an interview with me and to host a giveaway of one of my items - a pair of snowy owl lace earrings perfect for Halloween.  So be sure to check out the interview and leave a comment to be entered into the giveaway!