Tomato, Tomato, Tomato, Tomato

I wish I looked this good when I was canning my tomatoes. I will admit I felt pretty great doing all this work, and I may have reached this kind of excitement on the inside....LOL BUT I didn't look this good, and I don't think I could ever allow myself to be this messy...I mean I would be the one cleaning it all up....LOL

You know I went to the Farmer's market, and I bought a boat load of tomatoes. They had heirloom tomatoes, which I'd never seen one before. If you haven't you won't see one here either, because I forgot to take a picture of them. Anyway, I got a 20 lbs. box for $10.00. We ate a few, and gave a few away. Everyone said they were good. Last night I made tomato sauce with just this kind. I can't wait to try it in my food to see if I can tell the difference.

We also bought 100 lbs of other tomatoes. Yes folks I said 100 lbs. It came as four 25 lbs boxes. They were $14.00 a piece. I really only wanted 3 but Chris said we needed 4. He was right. Out of all of those I have 16 left, and they are beautiful. We made 30 quarts of sauce, 10 quarts of stewed tomato/okra, and 16 pints of salsa....YUMMY!

Tonight I am going to clean the box of cherry tomatoes we bought. The big box was $10.00. I think it is like 15-20 lbs. After I wash them all, I am going to lay them out to dry, then bag them, and freeze them. Then when I'm cooking my yummy sauce, or chili, or soup I can just pop however many I want into some hot water, slip the skins off and pop them in my dishes. That way I'll have fresh yummy sunshine cherry tomatoes in the dead, dark winter. Yeah baby, that's what I'm talking about.

I thought after I canned, and froze all my tomatoes I would start to feel like the title of this children's book:

But I don't. I have really loved this whole thing. Really. Chris and I have been having a wonderful time doing this together. That's right folks, he rolls his sleeves up and just get busy with me. I think he really likes it to. He says he has really enjoyed this time with me. That makes is all worth it to me.

I haven't got tired of doing tomatoes yet, and I feel like I need some more. I need more sauce, and I need to can some crushed.....Oh and I need some plain stewed with veggie...LOL

I will admit I think when I looked down at the lonely 16 left, I swear the one farthest to the left looked just like this:Maybe I do need a break!! LOL

Here is what I did with the left over tomato sauce from the batches I did. I took those wonderful looking green peppers I got, that were the size of coffee mugs, and made the most wonderful stuffed peppers....Yummy!!

Stuffed Peppers

5 large green peppers (or as many as will fit in your crock pot or roaster)

1 lb of hamburger

1 lb of pork sausage

1 vidalia onion

1 green pepper

1 1/2 cups to 2 cups bread crumbs

2 to 4 eggs

seasonings (salt, oregano, A1, or whatever your tastes are that day)

Tomato sauce (homade or from a can...LOL)

Cut the tops off your peppers, and clean them out, but leave them whole. Then chop up your onion, 1 green pepper. Mix that with your meat, bread crumbs, eggs, and seasoning. Stuff that mixture into your peppers. Fill them up, and just alittle over. Place stuffed peppers in crock pot or roaster. Make meatballs with the remaining mixture and place around the peppers. Pour tomato sauce over everything. I put these on High in my crock pot. I didn't time how long they took. When they were done we ate them. I would say maybe 2-3 hours on high. My guess for the oven would be 350 for that amount of time.

I served fresh corn on the cob with this. Growing up my mom used to use rice instead of bread crumbs. You could serve rice on the side with this. My mom used to serve mashed potatoes, and we used the sauce as gravy. The sauce with thicken, and it is some kind of good.