Paleo Fried Green Tomato Bites

I’ve had stomach problems my entire life — like constant upset with no explanation other than a dairy allergy and IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) with no cure.

I’ve had all kinds of tests and seen all kinds of specialists. They told me to try the FODMAP diet (basically avoiding this giant list of foods that cause gas), take certain pills, and just deal with it.

It got to a point when I was just dealing with it. For years. I ate anything I wanted other than dairy and expected to get sick after or even during a meal.

Then, a friend who has ulcerative colitis told me about the Specific Carb Diet (SCD). It was created for people with Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, celiac disease, diverticulitis, cystic fibrosis, and chronic diarrhea.

SCD is essentially no grain at all and no processed sugar. It’s a lot of vegetables (which I used to hate) and meat, and even though steak is my favorite food, vegetables, no grain, AND no sugar sounded terrible to me. So I thanked her for the advice and kept on doing what I was doing.

Fast forward several months and I was throwing up on the bathroom floor at Northstar for no reason instead of being healthy and having a conversation with my boss, who I was meeting for the first time.

I had a few more “episodes” the next two weeks, thankfully at home, and I decided I was done dealing with it. I started doing research on SCD and went crawling back to the friend who told me about it to say she was right and I needed to do something different.

I discovered the Against All Grain blog and cookbooks by Danielle Walker. Her story sounded similar to mine and her stomach was healed by going grain-free. She also has a TON of delicious recipes that made me realize it wouldn’t be the unfortunate life I was imagining.

Fast forward another month and I’m doing much better! I’m still not completely grain-free because corn seems fine for me and I (and my dog, Bobby) may be addicted to popcorn now. But, I am also eating very limited amounts of sugar and no caffeine because I realized those were big triggers for stomach episodes.

I can say now that a lot of vegetables can be delicious, especially when they're in a yummy stew or something. I also have a newfound love of fruit! Everything else tastes better when you’re not eating sugar.

Anyway, all that to say that I tried to make up my own recipe for the first time tonight.

I love fried green tomatoes and was (a little too) upset when I realized I would never be able to eat a fried green tomato again.

My grandma has a tomato garden and asked if I could come over, pick them all, and take them home because she had too many. I picked some of the green ones too and had the brilliant idea to make SCD, paleo, possibly keto, fried green tomato bites.

I really thought this recipe would be the next best thing. I thought I would create this amazing, innovative recipe, write about it online, and everyone would be eating baby fried green tomatoes the next day.

Okay, so now here we are and I just made the bites. Let me start by saying they actually taste great! And let me also say they were a pain in the a**, I made a mess all over my kitchen, and only managed to fry half the tomatoes I cut up because it was TOO STRESSFUL.

I started out trying to use the whole pecans as the coating. I put them in my single-serve blender cup with some salt, pepper, and paprika and blended (thinking it would just chop them up) until I got this savory pecan butter...that I got all over my counter and caked into the blender blades. It tasted good, but you can't smother a tomato in pecan butter and fry it...idk maybe you can, but I didn’t think it was a good idea.

So, I switched to the already-ground almond meal I had.

Once I was cooking the tomatoes, I had so much burnt stuff in the bottom of my pan that I thought it was going to be ruined. My hands were covered in goopy almond meal every five seconds and a lot of it ended up in the pan, sink, and on the floor.

As I write this, I haven’t completely cleaned up, and I’m waiting for my husband to emerge from playing video games and react to the state of the kitchen.

All that being said, let me share the recipe with you.

The Recipe

• 6 oz. small green tomatoes
• ½ cup almond meal
• ½ tsp paprika
• ¾ tsp kosher salt
• ½ tsp ground pepper
• 1 large egg, beaten
• ¼ cup arrowroot powder
• 4 tbsp avocado oil

1. Slice the tomatoes into ¼ inch slices. This is much easier with a serrated knife.
2. Heat avocado oil in a skillet on medium-low heat.
3. Mix almond meal, paprika, salt, and pepper in a small bowl.
4. Place arrowroot powder and beaten egg in two separate bowls.
5. Coat tomato slices in arrowroot powder, then in the egg, then in the almond meal mixture. Then place the coated tomato in the hot oil. Brown for about a minute on each side, then move to a plate covered in a paper towel.
6. Continue until all tomatoes are cooked.
7. Present them unattractively on a plastic plate.
8. Clean up the giant mess you just made.

I’m sure there is a talented, brave soul out there who can perfect the paleo fried green tomato bites. If you do, I would love to know what you did!