Garden Tomatoes For Breakfast

So, here's something I never expected to see: fresh garden tomatoes for breakfast in December. That's right- the tomatoes in the pictures below were grown in our garden over the summer, and have not been dried, frozen, canned, or preserved in any other way, except to have been kept in a cool, dry location.

The variety is called "Grappoli D'Inverno", or 'Grapes of Winter', and was developed for it's keeping properties. I know- it's suuuper wrong to transport live seeds across international borders, but I'm so glad I did. This is one of the best investments of time, money and energy I've made in my personal life here.

I had gotten them planted later than I would have liked, and then neglected the plants for the rest of the summer. But when it came time to clean the garden up in September (back before we had nights dropping below zero...) we found all these tomato plants with just ripening (pale yellow to orange in color) fruits. We cut the entire plants at the base and brought the entire lot into the house. 

I had intended to jar or pickle them- but never got around to it. Instead, we just left the tomatoes- plants and all- in our unheated front hallway. Over the past several months, a few times a week, we pick a few of the slowly ripening cherry tomatoes from the long dried out vines and toss them in our morning omelettes. It's amazing to me that we can eat tomatoes from the garden- without any preservation efforts- almost 4 entire months after they were picked.