Oven "Fried" Okra! Mmmm...

We have a row of okra that are planted from saved seed.  Most of it is Clemson spineless, but there were evidently a a few Burgundy okra seeds mixed in there as well.  With the warm temperatures and intermittent rains, they have been loaded in blooms and you can almost watch them grow they grow so fast!  Each afternoon, I go out to the garden and lift my shirt up and use it as a 'bucket' of sorts to hold the okra I pick.  I never take the time to count them, but it is a nice little 'mess' of okra every day.

Now, we eat okra as a side dish quite often and we fix it in several different ways. We enjoy it, but I ran across a recipe that we wanted to try from the Gotreaux Farms Newsletter.  The Gotreaux's are a farm family that we've blogged about a couple years ago HERE.

We love fried okra, but fried okra makes a big mess.  Eating a bunch of fried foods is probably not the healthiest thing in the world for you.  But this recipe is for Crunchy Oven-Fried Okra (from Love Life and Good Food).  You'll need:

4 cups fresh okra
4 Tablespoons cornmeal
6 Tablespoons Panko Breadcrumbs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 Tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese
2 eggs beaten
3-4 Tablespoons coconut oil

First I cut up the okra and preheat the oven to 425F:

Then I assemble my ingredients and combine the cornmeal, Panko breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, and Parmesan cheese into a gallon-sized ziploc bag.  I also crack two nice country fresh eggs in a bowl.

Tricia put the coconut oil on a stoneware baking sheet and puts it in the oven to melt a little while we finish prepping.

A little at a time she mixes the cut up okra in the beaten egg until they are all coated well.

A little at a time, add the egg-coated okra to the ziploc bag and shake until coated evenly.

Add the coated okra to the baking sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes, turning after about 10 minutes. At the end, turn the oven to broil to give the okra a nice golden brown color.

When the kitchen timer goes off, you can remove from the oven.  Looks nice, doesn't it?

I would say to allow to cool before eating, but honestly, quite a few get sampled right of the baking sheet before we ever serve them on our plates.  We really enjoy this recipe and think you will too!