Tomatoes Are The Saving Grace In Salads

I find salads boring. They are one of those foods that is good for you, but who wants to eat one? The only reason I eat salads is for the zest that tomatoes bring. Especially when mixed with cucumbers and avocado.
Yesterday, I made myself a lentil-rice dish. But I had no pasta sauce. So I just added some basil and oregano and salt. The result? It tasted like cardboard. Not good.
Today I went to the store and stocked up on eight jars of pasta sauce. I just add a jar to my lentil-rice stews and I have something yummy.
From the Los Angeles Times:

While the tomatoes are cooking, start preparing the kushary. Clarified butter can be found at Trader Joe's and select gourmet markets. Harissa can be found at Middle Eastern groceries.
Roasted tomato sauce2 white onions, thinly sliced
1/4 cup olive oil2 tablespoons chopped garlic1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme2 1/4 pounds tomatoes (about 12 plum), cored and chopped1 cup waterSalt1. In a medium, heavy-bottom pot, cook the onions in the olive oil over medium heat until they start to turn a deep brown, about 45 minutes, stirring frequently.2. Stir in the garlic and thyme and cook just until aromatic, 1 to 2 minutes.3. Add the tomatoes and water and bring to a gentle simmer. Cook until the tomatoes soften completely and begin to break apart, about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and cool slightly.4. Purée the tomato mixture in a blender until smooth. (Be careful not to fill the blender more than 1/3 of the way or steam may force the liquid to fly out of the blender. And always cover the lid with a towel when blending hot liquids to prevent splashes and spills.)5. Season to taste with salt and keep in a warm place until ready to serve.

Robots Taking Care Of Tomatoes

Judy Lowe writes: Don’t you just love the idea of robots taking care of tomato plants, feeding and watering them when the tomatoes ask for it?! And not just in a SF book or flick. It’s here — and has some practical implications for agriculture.
Because this kind of thing fascinates me, I’m taking the unusual step of turning this column over to the MIT news service today, so you can read all about what they’re doing.
Be sure to scroll through the photos, too.
“In the middle of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) sits a platform of fake grass with tomato plants nestled in terra-cotta pots, growing under the light of an artificial sun.
“But this urban, indoor garden has a twist: The caretakers of the plants are entirely robotic.

The Tomato Story

From Wikipedia: The Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum, syn. Lycopersicon lycopersicum & Lycopersicon esculentum[1]) is an herbaceous, usually sprawling plant in the Solanaceae or nightshade family, as are its close cousins tobacco, potatoes, aubergine (eggplants), chilli peppers, and the poisonous belladonna. It is a perennial, often grown outdoors in temperate climates as an annual. Typically reaching to 1-3m (3 to 9 ft) in height, it has a weak, woody stem that often vines over other plants. The leaves are 10–25 centimetres (3.9–9.8 in) long, odd pinnate, with 5–9 leaflets on petioles,[2] each leaflet up to 8 centimetres (3.1 in) long, with a serrated margin; both the stem and leaves are densely glandular-hairy. The flowers are 1–2 centimetres (0.39–0.79 in) across, yellow, with five pointed lobes on the corolla; they are borne in a cyme of 3–12 together.
The tomato is native to South America and a prehistoric introduction to Central America and Southern parts of North America. Genetic evidence shows that the progenitors of tomatoes were herbaceous green plants with small green fruit with a center of diversity in the highlands of Peru. These early Solanums diversified into the ~dozen species of tomato recognized today. One species, Solanum Lycopersicum, was transported to Mexico where it was grown and consumed by prehistoric humans. The exact date of domestication is not known.