fruit veggies: tomatoes

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Updated November 1, 2012

Fruit + veggies 101
Tomato

By Leigh Felesky
First published in Chatelaine's May 2003 issue.
© Rogers Publishing Ltd.

From pizza to fettuccine--not to mention french fries with ketchup--it's hard to imagine food without tomatoes. This fruit (and yes, it is a fruit) is loaded with vitamin C and has been known to protect against heart disease. Native to the Americas, you can find the "love apple," as it has been called in Europe, in supermarkets all year-round.

How to buy

	Choose those deep in colour, heavy for their size and firm but not hard.
	The smell should be fragrant and yield to gentle pressure.
	Tomatoes with vines attached keep longer.

How to store

	Avoid storing tomatoes in the refrigerator, they will lose their flavour in the cold.
	If not yet ripe, store in a paper bag with the stem down for a few days.
	Red juicy ripe tomatoes will keep for several days on the counter.

How to prepare

	For burgers or sandwiches, slice a large beefsteak tomato. Oblong plum tomatoes are delicious on pizza or diced in an uncooked pasta sauce with olive oil. Explode-in-your-mouth cherry tomatoes are best eaten raw or sauteed. For frying, try tart green tomatoes, which never ripen and have their own unique culinary appeal. Fried green tomatoes are particularly popular in the Southern U.S.
	If the recipe calls for peeled tomatoes pour boiling water over them and let them sit for half a minute, then plunge tomatoes into very cold water. Make a small cut through the skin and the whole peel will come off easily.
	To deseed, cut in wedges and squeeze out the seeds over a bowl. This is often necessary when making sauces.

Nutritional info:

1 tomato: 26 calories, 1 g protein, 6 g carbohydrates, 0.6 mg iron, 6 mg calcium, 273 mg potassium, 23 mg vitamin C, 1.5 g dietary fibre

Recipes

	Fresh herb tomato sauce
	Crazy tomato toss
	Fried green tomatoes
	Chunky sunrise salsa
	Broccoli and cheese tortellini in a creamy tomato sauce
	Chèvre and sun-dried tomato chicken


		How to buy
		How to store
		How to prepare
		Nutritional info
		Recipes


		Apples
		Avocados
		Beets
		Cauliflower
		Cucumbers
		Mangoes
		Oranges
		Pears
		Potatoes
		Rhubarb
		Squash
		Tomatoes
		Out-of-the-ordinary produce


		Get 1000+ recipes in our Recipe File


		Talk tomatoes in our Food + recipes forum

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