August is my favorite time of the season. The air smells clean, sunrises and sunsets are at their all time best, it’s warm late into the night and the cherry tomatoes of all shape, size and color are sweetening for the picking! The aroma that a tomato plant puts off in late summer is a smell that cannot be replicated during any other time of the year. The cherry tomato is a small garden variety of the tomato. In a cup of cherry tomatoes there is nearly 1.5g of protein and over 350mg of potassium! They are also a good source of vitamin E, A and C. It’s hard to resist popping a couple into my mouth as I pick for the CSA deliveries. We have a wide variety of cherry tomatoes this year from the ever so popular “sweet one hundred”
Cherry Tomato Cluster
to the beautiful, yellow “pear tomato”. If you can resist eating them all right out of the basket I suggest you cut them in half and throw a few in an egg scramble, a salad or in some fresh pasta with basil, garlic, and olive oil! Check out the recipe section for my favorite new variety of potato salad: Mediterranean Potato Salad. Cherry tomato cluster picture courtesy of vegetableseed.net.
In Europe the tomato was only grown as an ornamental for years. Not until the early 1800′s did anyone even consider eating a tomato because it was believed to be fatal if consumed! The tomato belongs to the nightshade family along with potatoes, eggplants, peppers and tobacco. But what exactly is a nightshade anyway? (I did some research) All nightshade vegetables are known to have some form of toxin in the green portion of the plant – hence tobacco and nicotine. I have a yoga friend that excluded all night shades from his diet because of this toxin that is said to have inhibitory effects on our bodies natural healing process. Maybe the Europeans were on to something?! I believe that everything in moderation is the best way to enjoy the fruits of this earth and still lead a happy, healthy life.
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