Heirloom tomatoes, on prominent display at our local supermarkets or farmer’s markets, stand out with their awkward shapes and unusual colors looking more like produce defects rather than treasures that generations have coveted and passed down through the years. I’ve often wondered if the name ‘heirloom’ was just another salient term that permits the grocer to charge more or for a waiter to use when pitching the appetizer as in, “we’re offering an heirloom tomato tower that begins with razor thin heirloom slices that are interlaced with buffalo mozzarella cream and finished with a drizzle of chive oil that has been infused with leprechauns.”

But, heirloom tomatoes are special and worth the price and star billing. Heirlooms are grown from pure seeds that have been cultivated from season to season for hundreds of years. Unlike hybrid produce from the supermarket which has been altered to improve yield and production, heirloom tomatoes are the same today as they were when George Washington ate them with his wooden teeth. And studies have shown that heirlooms are also superior in nutrients to hybrid produce that seem to have been somewhat watered down throughout years of genetic transformations. Yet, all tomatoes, whether heirloom or hybrid, and any tomato products like sauces and ketchup, are rich with vitamins and anantioxidant that is lycopene, which offers proven protective qualities against a growing number of cancers. And, organic tomatoes provide three times more lycopene than the others. The bottom line is that all tomatoes are steeped in nutritional value, but organic heirloom tomatoes are ahead of the peck.

Heirloom tomatoes are in late, late season right now, so crunchtime will be offering three different ways for using the fruits that are rich with heritage and nutrition (remember tomatoes are not vegetable, despite some references). We’re always mining for new ways to use heirlooms, so please add your ideas in the comments.

First up is tortilla soup. My heirlooms were about ready to take a bad turn, so soup seemed like an easy way to preserve them. I had a leftover ear of corn (save everything) from which I cut-off the kernels to add texture and flavor to the soup and I used the cob to flavor the cooking tomatoes. Corn makes the soup sweeter and complex so omit it if you want a simpler flavor. And please note, corn is also not a vegetable, it is a starch. Broccoli – still a vegetable.

Check back this week for our Heirloom Tomato Bloody Mary – more like a Sunny Mary.

Tortilla Strips (how-to)

Cut tortilla into long thin strips. Brush with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Bake in 325° oven for 10-15 minutes. Time will vary depending on the kind of tortilla you use, so check them at 10 minutes. I used a whole grain tortilla that doesn’t taste like cardboard when toasted.

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Dr. April reports: Summer in the Northwest was in a word-grim. Although it didn’t rain, on many days the sun failed to show up until 3 or 4, if at all. Desperate for warmth and sun we booked a last minute trip to Hawaii just before school started. Vacations can be tricky for eating and our cheeseburger quotient did go up. But! We worked hard to eat real food for dinner most nights. Taking advantage of outdoor grills and the kitchen of our rented condo we tried as many different fishes as we could and offer our thoughts.

Ono – Means “good” in Hawaiian. Very firm and tastes a bit like chicken-perhaps it was the original chicken of the sea? It needed more marinade than we had access to.

Opah – Reminded me a bit of east coast blue fish-firm and fishy in a good way. Great straight up grilled.

Mahi mahi – The kids favorite- mild, easy to pan saute.

Ume – A completely new one and my favorite. At the fish market they called it “grey snapper.” We went full bore Hawaiian and baked it with Macadamia nuts on top! Delicious.

Try a new fish today! TheAmerican Heart Association recommends at least two servings of fish per week to help prevent heart disease, lower blood pressure, and reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

Whole Foods’ fish case. Look fresh fish for $10 or less!

You don’t have to go to Hawaii to find great fish. Check with your fish monger – which could be the guy at Ralph’s or Costco in the white hat and apron who also serves up beef chuck. See what fish is in the freshest, cheapest, smells the best and load up. To make it easier, we’ve found ten easy to prepare fish recipes. Don’t forget Crunchtime’s own how-tos for ceviche, fish baked in parchment, grilled tuna options, fish tacos, and fishcakes.

No props nor puntastic jokes nor freakish eyebrows needed here. With the time it takes you to cut up this salad – a salad that is asbig on stage presence as it is on nutrientscrunch and crunch – you’ll be snickering all the way to your easy chair.

I was inspired by a meal had at a local restaurant,The Izaka-ya in West Hollywood which is a small haunt devoted to creative Japanese food. My takeaway from having the sashimi salad was to put a sweentend soy and vinegar dressing over raw vegetables, much like sunomono.

This salad works, especially for kids, in two ways. First, the flavor of the dressing is light, sweet and salty – umami heaven by combining flavors to elevated taste satisfaction. Then, the chopped carrots and cucumber make a feast for the eyes. The veggies look like something different and appealing when presented in a stack that a ten-year old boy can knock over before he munches them down.

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Thinking of lunch while under the influence of the food blog mothership and my leftovers, led me to this Saturday meal for just my teenager and me.

These people, teenagers I’ll call them, start out as babies accepting their foods from us as jarred amalgams and willingly eat combinations like peas & beef or carrots & turkey or broccoli & chicken & potato salad. Then they learn to talk. I believe my daughter’s first words were “gross, my carrot stick touched the edge of my hotdog and now it’s all ruined and disgusting!”

From then on you do your best to keep the poisonous germs from an apple slice from even so much as looking at a chicken tender much less coming into contact with it. You spend the toddler and tween years compartmentalizing the kids’ food with divider plates, bowls and barricades – a kind a separation that even the Sunnis and Shiites would appreciate until the one day when your child accepts, and god-willingly, likes an omelette with cheese or pizza with onions. Of course, this would happen at their best friend’s house whose mom is a better cook than you, but the introduction of food combinations has occurred and you don’t care how it started.

Kendall was willing to try the steak salad. Her version is below. Easy to make with mine by eliminating the vegetables that she’s not so keen on. She can take the higher calorie foods, so we added on goat cheese too. Success. Note: if Griffin, still a tween, were joining us, I’d have divided the nation of foods and forced them to their own corners of the plate. By combining the core ingredients in ways the younger diners can tolerate, everyone wins and everyone eats well.

Lean beef, in moderation, power packs iron and protein. Adding it to the vegetables in a salad with a light but flavor-intense salad makes for a very healthy lunch.

healthy steak salad with steakhouse vinaigrette (recipe):

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Perhaps it was the start of school or the bins of apples at Whole Foods or that the butcher didn’t have any pork tenderloins available for me to grill, but I picked up boneless pork chops for the first time in forever. Pork chops, although a meat and that means cholesterol, are not criminal when you go lean, cut-off the fat and stick to a 4 oz portion – about 200 calories and 1/4 of the daily cholesterol allowance.

My mom used to bake massive bone-in pork chops and, as if we wouldn’t have been satisfied with the brontosaurus portion of meat, she stuccoed on a thick milk-to-flour-to-egg-to-breadcrumb coating. It was delicious and barbaric. I would wrestle that meat off the bone like a grisly mountain man devouring his critter meal.And the worse part, or the best part, depending on your relationship with fat, was the crispy fatty edge that I would ration out to every bite of the dried-out meat. I used to spread butter onto steak too, but that’s for another time. Ready, clear! and…we gotta a heartbeat.

All those fat-laced, processed cheese, sugar-coated days growing up in Wisconsin that brought me to eating real food. I would need to have healthier way to eat pork chops. I caught Lucinda Scala on the Today Show. Here is the part as a mom where I feel the need to justify any television viewing: it was 5:45 am before anyone awakened and I breezed through the show at 4x speed,(east coast feed on west coast DirecTV) stopping only to watch critical news stories and pork chop talk. Lucinda is known for making hearty meals for her man brood at home. This recipe seemed harmless and fast – perfect for crunchtime. I modified it and we indulged.

Reminiscent of pork chops and apple sauce,can you hear Humphrey Bogart now?, but this preparationkeeps the apples in tact, holding on to their nutrients and offering a make-ahead option. Let’s not dismiss the onions here either and their cardiovascular and anti-inflammatory benefits.
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