SHOPPING : Baking Apples, Bargain Tomatoes, Tiny Muffins

The Summer Rose is one of the prettiest apples around--clear, light yellow blushed with red. “It’s a wonderful eating and baking apple,” says chef Jim Dodge, who came across the variety in a San Francisco market recently when he needed to photograph pie apples for his book, “Baking With Jim Dodge,” due out next year.

What makes the Summer Rose a great baker? For one thing, it holds its shape--which means it won’t turn to applesauce in a pie. And it exhibits a natural sourness, which Dodge says a good baking apple should have. He also likes its slight earthiness, which, he says, “makes it a more interesting baking apple.”

By the way, you can forget that old cliche, “easy as apple pie.” According to Dodge, “apple pie is one of the most difficult desserts to make.” And the choice of apple is crucial to the outcome. So if you’re in a pie-making mood, look for Summer Rose and Gala, another apple that Dodge recommends. They’re available at Bristol Farms in South Pasadena for $1.89 a pound.

Right now is a good time to buy big batches of tomatoes for sauces. The Grand Central Public Market in downtown Los Angeles, for instance, had tomatoes of decent quality at the bargain price of eight pounds for $1 early this week. Sometimes the price drops as low as ten pounds for $1. Jumbo sweet red peppers looked beautiful the other day, and they were only 50 cents a pound. That’s a lot less than the $3.99 tag spotted at one supermarket. If mangoes are on your list--and the Central Market usually has lots of them--don’t rely on color as a guide to ripeness. The Keitt variety, which is in season now, remains green when fully ripe. The mango is ready to eat if it gives slightly when gently pressed.

“Bigger is better.” That’s been the motto for muffins, but smaller can be cheaper. Pioneer Boulangerie (2012 Main St., Santa Monica) has come out with a new miniature muffin in the same flavors as its jumbos. Six go for $1.69; you can get 14 for $3.49. The main advantage of the minis: you have room to munch on several muffin flavors at one sitting. Flavors include date-nut, bran, blueberry-bran, raspberry, banana crunch, poppy-seed, apple-nut, pineapple-carrot and harvest.