Green Tomato Casserole With Old Bay and Turkey Bacon

I was perusing the internet to find ways of using up a bulk of green tomatoes. They were taking over my garden and kitchen! They were ripening on the vines faster than I could eat them, so I found some recipes that used both red and green tomatoes. I made tomato sauce, canned tomatoes, fried green tomatoes, and even Green Tomato Bread, a recipe I found on food.com that was AMAZING! I also found a recipe for Green Tomato Casserole that helped me use up more tomatoes and I found it to be really delicious when I added turkey bacon and Old Bay! It tastes good scrambled with eggs, fried up with rice, eat with chips or potato skins for finger-food or on it's own with a little hot sauce!

• Ready In: 1 hr
• Serves: 4
• Yields: 4 4 square inch pieces

Ingredients

• 3  green tomatoes (raw)
• 3 -4  slices  white bread (good use of those end pieces!)
• 1  cup sharp cheddar cheese
• 2  tablespoons butter, separated
• 1  teaspoon sugar
• 1  teaspoon salt
• 2  slices  turkey bacon
• 1  teaspoon  Old Bay Seasoning (sprinkling, really)

Directions

1. Cube up your tomatoes and dig out the seed jelly to keep the casserole from being too watery (unless you like it that way). Use more bread in the recipe to soak up extra juicy tomatoes.
2. Discard the seed jelly and place cubes into a 2 quart baking dish and season with sugar and salt. Give it a toss.
3. Chop up your turkey bacon and add it to the tomatoes (I usually cut the bacon with scissors).
4. Rip up your white bread and place in a blender and give it a quick run. Then add 2/3 cup of cheese and 1 tablespoon of butter (very soft but not melted) and add those to the blender with bread. Run until the blender has bladed up the bread and some chunks start to form.
5. Spread the bread mixture over the tomatoes like a crumbling crust. Take the other tablespoon of butter and break it up into pieces to dollop on top of the bread mixture. Be sure to place a cover on the dish well.
6. Cover and bake for 45 minutes, if there is too much water, bake for another 5-8 minutes uncovered to help the water evaporate more. Keep a careful eye if you are further baking it without the cover. Then add the other 1/3 of cheese to the topping and let it continue to bake uncovered until the cheese melts.
7. Sprinkle on some Old Bay, as much or as little as you want, and let it cool a bit and allow the bread to continue absorbing the juices.
8. Cut out pieces with a spatula and serve.
9. This recipe is good hot or cold, I really liked it with scrambled eggs and hot sauce, but it can be versatile in taste and presentation.