Tomatoes, Tomatoes, Tomatoes,

We are pretty lucky where I live that we can grow tomatoes quite well. We normally start them from seeds inside. We put them outside in the ground normally the week or so after Easter.

I'm getting pretty excited about my tomatoes I must confess. There are several things about tomatos I thought I would share with you today.

The first is an awesome website/ seed catalog that specializes in Tomatoes. It's fabulous. When I get my catalog in the mail, it reminds me of when I was a kid and my mother would get the Sears Wishbook catalog around Christmas time. I try to get my chores done quickly and get the girls in bed so I can sneak away a few moments of alone time and savor the beautiful images of tomatoes........
You can request a catalog by going here http://www.totallytomato.com/RequestCatalog.asp    or you can shop online through thta link also. I'm telling you , it's amazing. Great quality, all different varieties and honestly just plain fun!

So we always grow a ton of tomatoes. We of course use them as slicer tomatoes to put on sandwiches or salads, and we all enjoy just picking the small varieties right off the vine and snacking on them. But we always have such an excess. Last year alone we put up
- salsa ( hot, medium, mild and EXTRA hot)
- green tomato relish
- pasta sauce
- stewed tomatoes
- tomato juice
- Italian stewed tomatoes ( great for chile, has onion, garlic and pepper in it)
- whole tomatoes
- tomato based veggie soup
- pizza sauce

One company I have found that has some great pre made mixes for a lot of the stuff is Mrs. Wages. You can find their stuff at http://www.mrswagesstore.com/  . You can start buying now in bulk. I don't use the premade stuff for the salsa , soup , juice or stewed tomatoes, but the mixes are great for pizza sauce, pasta sauce and ketchup.

Of course I want to enjoy all the yumminess of tomatoes while they are still fresh, so I have a fabulous little cookbook I love.

I acually went to a local tomato festival and they were selling these books, but of course they were $30 or more, so I came home and got one from off line for around $8. It was used, but it has so many really tasty recipes to use tomatoes in. I highly recommend it.

Well that's all for me today, I'm off to drool over my Totally Tomotoes catalog some more while the bread is baking and everyone else is napping.