Stewed Tomatoes

I tried something new and made homemade stewed tomatoes. When I went to the farmers market on Wednesday, I found a half bushel of tomatoes (man, do you know how many tomatoes that is!) along with green peppers. I picked up everything else I needed from Meijers.

I found a recipe which uses a quart of tomatoes. Since I had 10 pint jars, I tried to adapted the recipe (which would be equal to 5 quarts of tomatoes). It worked out ok for how I use stewed tomatoes (in soups and sauces), but it was too much celery, green peppers and onions to eat as a traditional stewed tomatoes. I also learned to have more jars ready than what I think I will need. I ended up with 10 pint jars and 1 quart (because I did not have 2 more pint jars ready) plus a little that I could use right away. For lunch I had tomato soup with 3 heaping tablespoons of stewed tomatoes in it...yummmmm.

Here is the recipe as it is for 1 quart of tomatoes:

Stewed Tomato Ingredients:
1 quart peeled and cut up tomatoes
1 green pepper, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
One small onion, peeled and lightly chopped.
1 clove of garlic, peeled and lightly chopped.
1/2 teaspoon sugar
Sprig of parsley
Salt or celery salt to taste
Black pepper to taste

Preparation Directions:
Put cut up tomatoes into a 2 quart sauce pan.
Add diced green pepper and celery.
Add chopped onion and garlic.
Add the sugar.
Chop parsley leaves and add to the pan.
Cook on low heat.
Cook until celery has softened.
Serve with salt or celery salt, and black pepper to taste.

Well, now I still have a ton of tomatoes left, so I will be doing more canning.