The Sumo (known in Japan as a Dekopon) is a tangerine/orange hybrid developed in Japan and now grown in California. It looks like the biggest mandarin you’ve ever seen – with a distinctive top-knot – and it’s super-sweet, seedless, and easy to peel. In other words, it’s a kid favorite.

We heard about these sweeties from our favorite local produce store, Grow – The Produce Shop, which happened to be the first place in the country to carry them. Soon the L.A. Times was covering the Sumo story. Sumos (Sumi?) are now showing up in stores and farmers’ markets across California and beyond.

As soon as we got our hands on a few, we started eating them (of course) and then began brainstorming for a few more ways to use these happy little fruits. The result? This Sumo-Sesame Salad, a light and tasty mid-day pick-me-up:

Sumo-Sesame Salad

1 small head butter lettuce

2 Sumo oranges

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon rice vinegar

Juice of 1 large orange

1 tablespoon black sesame seeds

Distribute lettuce leaves over four plates. Peel and chop the Sumos into large bite-sized pieces. In a small container, whisk together the olive oil, rice vinegar, and orange juice. Dress salad, then sprinkle with black sesame seeds. Serves four.

So many foods with which you go/

So many ways to make you mine/

At this moment I see nine.

Clockwise from top: Carrot, black sesame seed, broccoli, black garbanzo bean, pumpkin, spinach, black bean, plain, tomato.

Basic Hummus Recipe

1 15-ounce can garbanzo beans (chick peas), drained, with 1/4 cup liquid reserved

2 T tahini (sesame paste)

Juice of 2 lemons

2 T extra-virgin olive oil

1 clove garlic

Salt and pepper to taste

Place garbanzo beans, tahini, lemon juice, olive oil, and garlic in a food processor and blend until smooth. Add liquid from garbanzo beans as necessary to achieve smooth and creamy consistency. Season as desired with salt and pepper; using canned beans it should not take much salt.

Note: To use dried beans, begin with 2 cups dried garbanzo beans. Soak for 6 to 8 hours or overnight. Drain and rinse, then cover with 6 cups of water and bring to a boil. Simmer for 1 hour, or until beans are tender. Drain, reserving 1 cup of the liquid. In a food processor or blender, blend the beans with the tahini, lemon juice, olive oil, and garlic. Add liquid as necessary until the hummus reaches a smooth, creamy consistency. Add 1 tsp. salt, or more to taste.

Hummus Variations:

Carrot: Steam 1 medium-sized carrot until it is tender; add to blender with other ingredients.

Black Sesame Seed: Add 1 heaping tablespoonful of black sesame seeds to completed hummus, stir to combine.

Broccoli: Steam 1 cup broccoli until very tender; add to blender with other ingredients.

Black Garbanzo Bean: Follow the directions for basic hummus, using the instructions for dried beans, with dried black garbanzo beans.

Pumpkin: Add 1/2 cup cooked and pureed pumpkin to the blender with other ingredients.

Spinach: Add 1 cup cooked fresh spinach to the blender with other ingredients.

Black Bean: Follow the directions for basic hummus using either the canned or dried bean variations.

Tomato: Core and chop 1 medium red tomato; add to blender with other ingredients. Note: You will need much less liquid because the tomato tends to be watery, so hold off on adding any additional liquid until you test the consistency.

Like these? We’ve got a million of ‘em. But you should know that for every tried and true variation, we’ve had a few flops. Red grape hummus = kind of gross. Red wine hummus (“drunken” hummus) = not as good as you’d think, plus the color was very strange. But there’s no harm in trying – and for what it’s worth, just about every vegetable we’ve tried to add has made for some mighty delicious hummus. What’s your favorite?

Heirloom tomatoes – known for their odd shapes and mottled colors – are the classic first generation tomatoes that you might recognize from your grandparents’ back yard. They are plump and full of real tomato flavor (no hothouse staleness here).

We were a little torn about what to do with our heirloom tomatoes because on the one hand, they’re so flavorful you want to enjoy them uncooked. But on the other hand, it is winter, and we’ve been craving comfort food. So we split it down the middle – We made a family dinner with these “BST Sandwiches” – bacon, spinach, tomato. And yes, the kids ate the spinach and the tomatoes. True fact – they’ll eat just about anything to get through to the bacon.

BST Sandwich (we call it “Best Sandwich”)

1 long baguette loaf, sliced lengthwise

8 oz. bacon, cooked and drained

2 medium heirloom tomatoes, thinly sliced

1 cup fresh spinach leaves

1 small handful basil leaves

Rosemary mayonnaise (see note).

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Toast bread in the oven, open-faced,  for 7 to 10 minutes or until it is light golden brown and crispy. Distribute bacon evenly across one side of the bread; repeat with tomatoes, spinach, and basil. Spread the other side of the bread with a light coating of rosemary mayonnaise. Close the bread, then slice the bread into individual sandwiches. Serve immediately. Serves about four.

*Note: You can make your own rosemary mayonnaise, but we just added some finely chopped fresh rosemary to some mayonnaise we already had on hand.

Love these heirloom tomatoes? If you’re near a Ralph’s grocery store, you’re in luck – Ralph’s will have them on special for the rest of the month for $2.99 per pound.

In our house we’ve gotten into sort of a breakfast rut. The kids are tired of waffles, French toast, and cereal. And when we make pancakes we try to sneak so many different ingredients in there (ahem, flaxseed meal) that the kids don’t trust us with pancakes anymore. So that’s what led us to thinking once again about breakfast cookies. Could they really be so bad, especially if they’ve got lots of other things going for them?

To test this theory, we decided to do a makeover of our mom’s molasses cookies recipe, a childhood favorite. (Here is the old-time recipe, proudly hand-written in our seventh-grade handwriting). We nixed the white flour altogether and added in some peanut butter and almond meal to pump up the protein a little bit. And yes, there’s butter, but we look at it as a “healthier” way to get fat than, say, partially hydrogenated vegetable oils. Will it lead to a good day ahead for the kids as they head out the door to school? We’ve had no complaints so far.

Molasses Breakfast Cookies

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

1/2 cup molasses

1/2 cup all-natural peanut butter (chunky is OK)

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

1 egg

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup oat flour

1/2 cup almond meal

1/4 cup flax seed meal

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. baking soda

1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. cloves

1 tsp. ginger

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, use a mixer to cream butter. Add molasses, brown sugar, peanut butter, and egg, and beat until light and fluffy. In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients and stir until mixed. Add dry ingredient mixture, 1/3 at a time, into butter mixture and stir until ingredients are evenly mixed. Scoop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto cookie sheets. Bake for 10 minutes. Makes 3 dozen cookies.

Want to see more ideas? Check out our Pinterest board called “Power Cookies.”

When the SoCal Lady Bloggers group invited us to join in a Valentine’s Day progressive dinner party, we happily signed up to serve an appetizer. What a great way to enjoy a meal and let everyone share in the cooking! We wanted to make something love-able, so we came up with two different kinds of Bruschetta Hearts.

Side note – In Italian, “bruschetta” is pronounced “bru-sket-ta” – the “sch” makes a “sk” sound. So if you want to sound like you are an authentic Italian when you’re describing your appetizer or ordering at a restaurant, make sure you ask for “bru-sket-ta.”

The most basic bruschetta involves toasted bread, garlic, and olive oil. If you want to get a little fancier, you can add more toppings like tomatoes and basil or roasted red peppers – or even something sweet, like oranges, which we’ll get to in a minute.

For our first version, we made a little Italian-style tomato mixture and added it to the toast with goat cheese. Although most bruschetta is served on crusty Italian bread, we made this first version with whole wheat bread, which gave it a nutty flavor.

Bruschetta Hearts with Tomato, Basil, and Goat Cheese

8 slices of whole wheat bread

2 ounces goat cheese, softened

2 medium vine-ripened tomatoes, finely chopped

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1/2 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

Cut the slices of bread using a heart-shaped cookie cutter. Arrange the bread hearts and toast them in a preheated 375 degree oven for 15 minutes, or until light brown and crispy. Spread each toast heart with a thin layer of goat cheese. Next, in a small mixing bowl, combine the tomatoes, olive oil, vinegar, basil leaves, and salt and pepper. Distribute tomato mixture evenly over each toast heart, spreading it to emphasize the heart shape. Serve immediately. Serves 4.

The second version we made was more of a Mexican-inspired treat, with a hot pink salsa made from red onions and blood oranges. We used some chili pepper tortillas (with a rich natural orange color) to boost the color and the spice.

Tortilla Hearts with Blood Orange/Red Onion Salsa

3 flour tortillas, preferably red or orange

3 blood oranges, peeled and chopped

1 small red onion, finely chopped

1/4 cup fresh cilantro, loosely chopped

1/2 teaspoon olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

With a heart-shaped cookie cutter, cut heart shapes out of each of the tortillas (you should be able to get at least three out of each tortilla). Toast tortilla hearts until crispy. Combine remaining ingredients in a small bowl, stir, and refrigerate until ready to serve. To serve, spread a small amount over each tortilla heart and serve immediately. Serves 8.

Kids cooking tip: It’s easy to involve kids with both of these recipes. Your pint-sized chefs can help with making the heart cut-outs, spreading the goat cheese, hand-tearing the basil or cilantro, and stirring and spreading the tomato or orange mixtures.

What’s next on the progressive dinner menu? Check out this Sweetheart Salad from Amy at Baby Baby Lemon.

And of course don’t miss any of the other courses:

Sparkling Pomegranate Jubilee from Someday I’ll Learn

Strawberry Bruschetta from The Wonder Years

Steakhouse Steaks for Two from The Gonzo Gourmet

Creamy Chicken Florentine from Sarcastic, Funny, and Brutally Honest

Baked Mini Cheesecakes from Create-Celebrate-Explore

White Chocolate Creme Brulee from This Talk Ain’t Cheap

Happy Valentine’s Day!

If you have a burning question for the First Lady on her campaign to get kids to stay active and eat healthy foods – or if you have an update on how your community is dealing with childhood obesity -  you can submit it (via video) to CNN. Post it to CNN’s iReport page before ET on Tuesday, Feb. 7, and your question may be used in the CNN interview with her. Tip: Keep your question short and sweet – under 15 seconds long works best for videos.

Food Bloggers Los Angeles volunteers

The Jolly Tomato took a break from writing yesterday to meet up with other bloggers from Food Bloggers Los Angeles for a volunteer project at Project Angel Food in Los Angeles. Project Angel Food is an organization that provides free, nutritious meals to people throughout Los Angeles who suffer from HIV/AIDS, cancer, and other illnesses. Project Angel Food volunteers help cook, assemble, and deliver more than 13,000 meals every week to people in need.

A few of the 1,200 meals we packed

When we arrived in the morning, our group got a comprehensive orientation on hygiene and kitchen protocol – and then we were put right to work. We chopped vegetables, scooped beans and lasagna, packed, sealed, and labeled food trays – and the operation was so efficient that before we knew it there were hundreds of meals stacked up and ready to be delivered.

Meals stacked and ready to go

Our fearless leader, Chef Tyson, told us that our kitchen crew had produced 1,200 meals that morning. A good day’s work for sure! Special thanks to Patti Londre of Worth the Whisk for coordinating the group effort.

To learn more about Project Angel Food, including how to volunteer or contribute, visit their web site.

Meyer lemons are the hipsters of the lemon family. They are not quite as tart as a regular lemon, they have a bright citrus flavor, and they’re incredibly popular throughout what people refer to as “California Cuisine.” Apparently Meyer lemons came about as a cross between a true lemon and some variety of orange; this could explain their mild flavor and versatility. They’re  mostly harvested in winter, which is great news for all of us who need a little lemon-y boost to get through January.

While admiring our Meyer lemons, the first recipe we came up with was a kale and lemon salad.We learned about making shockingly delicious raw kale salads from – who else – Dorothy of Shockingly Delicious. The key when using raw kale in a salad is to either massage the dressing into the kale, or just toss it together and let it sit for a few hours so the kale softens up a bit.

We are fully in support of the “lazy” method. So we took a beautiful bunch of Russian kale (it has flat, spindly leaves and purple stems), tore the leaves from the stems, and tossed the leaves in a bowl with a tablespoon of olive oil and the juice of one Meyer lemon. Then we let it sit for a few hours, and by dinnertime we had a beautiful lemon-y treat for the table.

Next we decided to go crazy with some winter colors and make a blue corn/Meyer lemon cornbread. We adapted this from a plain blue cornbread recipe from an Allrecipes.com; the result is nice and cake-y with a mild lemon flavor.

Blue Corn/Meyer Lemon Cornbread

1 cup blue cornmeal

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

5 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 cup white sugar

1 pinch salt

Grated rind of one Meyer lemon

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup butter

1 Meyer lemon, thinly sliced

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-inch circular baking pan. In a large mixing bowl, sift together cornmeal, flours, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Combine the eggs, milk, and oil in a separate bowl and mix well. Combine the egg mixture and lemon rind with the dry ingredients. Meanwhile, place the butter inside the baking dish in the oven until it melts. Then mix the hot butter into the cornmeal mixture. Transfer cornmeal mixture into the baking dish. Carefully arrange lemon slices in a circular pattern on top of the batter. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until the edges of the cornbread pull away from the side of the dish and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Serve  warm; drizzle with honey to taste.

Tasty, right? Next up for lemon week: Fish grilled with lemon, and another amazing lemon dessert.

One of the best vacations we ever had was a trip to Sorrento. Of course the scenery was beautiful and the food was amazing, but one of the best parts of the trip was the ever-present fragrance of lemons, from the lemon groves that dot the hillsides to the trees that flourish in nearly every backyard. They take their lemons seriously on the Amalfi Coast, serving it alongside fresh-caught fish, grilled vegetables, citrus-y sponge cakes, and best of all, in limoncello, the traditional liqueur of the region.

When we’re feeling the winter blues – or thinking longingly of Sorrento – we like to cheer everyone up with a quick batch of lemon bars. These little bars have a tangy lemon custard inside a crumbly sweet crust.

To make these lemon bars, we tried out the new seedless lemons from Frieda’s – The Specialty Produce Company. Frieda’s was kind enough to send us some samples, which brightened up our weekend considerably. These oval-shaped cuties are easy to squeeze, and there are no pesky seeds to filter out. Perfect for a dark winter day.

Lemon Bars

1 cup sifted flour

1/4 cup powdered sugar

1/2 cup butter, chilled

1 cup sugar

2 T additional flour

1/2 tsp. baking powder

3 eggs, well beaten

1/2 cup lemon juice

Powdered sugar for dusting

Combine flour and powdered sugar; cut butter into the mixture with a pastry blender. Press mixture firmly into baking pan (9 x 9 inch or 7 x 11 inch). Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, combine the sugar, 2 T flour, and baking powder. Add eggs and lemon juice, stir well to combine. Pour mixture over baked crust and return to oven. Bake for another 25 minutes or until custard is set and knife inserted in center comes out clean. Cut into squares when cool. Optional: Dust each square with powdered sugar.

Coming up next: Meyer lemons.

There’s plenty of debate about how to solve the childhood obesity epidemic, and no consensus on solutions (Eat fewer calories? Get more exercise? Both? Something else entirely?). But no matter how the problem gets addressed, it has to start at home. Therefore we humbly submit this list of things to do in your home to make sure your kids stay healthy without adding on pounds of fat. Let’s call these the “Top 5 Tips to Prevent Childhood Obesity.”

Shop with them: Take them with you to the store or the farmer’s market or the co-op (yes, we know, it’s a pain. Bring distractions if necessary). Let them see you evaluate options and make healthy choices. Help them make choices of their own (The Fuji apples or the Granny Smith apples? The red potatoes or the yellow potatoes?).

Cook with them: Yes, it’s messier this way, but it’s worth it if they have an investment in the food they are making and they have an incentive to eat it. There are countless jobs for kids to do in the kitchen. They can make granola. They can tear lettuce for salad and put it in the salad spinner. They can shake chicken with breadcrumbs in a bag to bread it. They can chop vegetables, within reason and with good guidance. Parents – this is your free labor force – why don’t you use it? The more they get excited about cooking, the more likely they are to choose healthier (not processed) food and to think carefully about the ingredients that are in each food.

Don’t punish or reward with food: You choose what foods they eat; they choose how much they are hungry for. Whether they eat a huge meal or a tiny meal, let it go. Kids have a strong sense of how hungry they are at any given time; we shouldn’t ruin that sense by insisting that they eat a certain amount at a certain time. We know some kids who are big breakfast eaters and just eat a tiny dinner; we know others who are breakfast pickers but will wolf down any and all dinner options. Know your kid. Respect his or her eating patterns. Don’t reward them with food, and don’t punish them for not eating as much as you think they should.

Skip the kids’ packaging: Sure, it’s tempting and easy to buy those small packs of yogurt or kiddie crackers. But what you’re getting with the kids’ version of any given product is probably more sugar and/or refined or processed ingredients. Do they like yogurt? Buy a big tub of plain yogurt and flavor it yourself. Do they love crackers? They can eat grownup crackers. Do they love sandwiches? You don’t have to buy special squishy white bread for them.

Skip the juice: This is a tough one, especially considering that most of us grew up drinking juice ourselves. But food is different now, as are activity levels and serving sizes. Juice manufacturers will try to sell you on all of the vitamins your kids are getting. But what they’re primarily getting is all of the sugar from fruit and none of the fiber. Want them to get those vitamins? Serve fruit. And pass out water or milk for drinking with meals.

We have one last pointer that doesn’t have to do with food specifically: Turn off the TV. Yes, we know kids love TV and it’s a big help to Mom and Dad sometimes.  But when the TV stays on and on for hours it gets destructive. First, your kids are exposed to countless crummy commercials. And second, it puts them in couch potato mode, where it becomes impossible to get up. So pick out a show that they want to watch, and then turn it off when it’s over (the DVR is a big help with this). Or pick a movie that everyone wants to watch and watch it together. It’s the same theory that dieters talk about with “intentional eating” only this is “intentional TV watching.” Decide what you’re going to watch, watch it, and then move on to the next thing – preferably something outside.

Here’s to a happy and healthy 2011!