Instructions: Ah, the taste of summer: sun-drenched tomatoes from the garden. Your plants are bulging with an abundant crop of beautiful, ripe, juicy red tomatoes. Or youre the recipient of shared bounty from a neighbors, friends or relatives prolific homegrown crop.

But even if you dont have a homegrown source, you can head to a farmers market. Pick the tomatoes that are firm, but not hard, and heavy for their size.

Theres nothing quite like the taste of a homegrown tomato. Theyre great plain and equally tasty dressed up in salads, hot or cold pastas, sandwiches, salsas, pizzas or stews. If you have large numbers, consider turning them into tomato or spaghetti sauces to stash in the freezer for a taste of summer later in the year.

No matter what you do with a tomato in the privacy of your own kitchen, it is a fruit - a fruit of the vine, as some experts call it. Tomatoes most often turn up in savory dishes, possibly a result of their filtering through the cuisines of Europe and especially Italy. Yet their occasional appearance in a spiced bread pudding or a tropical fruit salsa should remind us that they are not a vegetable.

The U.S. Supreme Court actually grappled with the tomatos identity, tackling how tomatoes should be handled in tariff law. For that purpose, the court in 1893 declared the tomato a vegetable. Just try telling that to a botanist.

Native populations of South America were the first to enjoy the fruits flavor. Tomatoes were impressive enough that conquistadors carried samples back from South America and Mexico to Europe - where they were considered an aphrodisiac by some and poisonous by others, probably because, like potato and eggplant, they are a member of the nightshade family.

The name tomate was administered by the Spanish, who probably gave up trying to pronounce the original Aztec name xitomati, meaning plump.

Centuries after tomatoes began in the Americas, the Spanish rode back in.

Spanish colonists carried tomatoes into the Caribbean and, over time, into Texas and Florida.

When preparing tomatoes, add a sprinkling of salt to bring out their flavor.

While some recipes advise peeling and seeding the tomatoes, others leave the skin on and use seeds and all.

To seed tomatoes and remove liquid, cut in half crosswise, place one half in the palm of your hand and gently squeeze out the liquid and seeds.

To peel tomatoes, submerge them in a pot of boiling water for 15 to 30 seconds. Remove and plunge into a bowl of cold water. Lift out and slip off the skins.

For the best flavor, store tomatoes at room temperature, not in the refrigerator, unless they have broken skins. Tomatoes become mushy and lose flavor at temperatures below 55 degrees.

Plum or Roma tomatoes are best for sauces because they are less watery and have more pulp. Yellow and orange tomatoes are excellent in salads since they generally are sweeter and less acidic than red varieties.

When cooking with tomatoes, figure that three to four medium tomatoes weigh about a pound. One large tomato yields about 1 cup of coarsely chopped tomatoes.

A plum or Roma tomato, depending on size, will yield about half as much.

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