Tomato city

With 24 mature plants (26 counting the small-fruited ones) I'm hauling in 40-50 pounds of tomatoes per week now. Given that I planted for canning, I'm not complaining -- it means that when I'm done giving tomatoes away, I still have piles for preserving, enough to do a batch of sauce or cut tomatoes on any given day. I'm just managing to stay ahead of it, too.

So far, I've made pizza sauce (it tasted wonderful in the pot, I hope oversweetening it was enough to cut the acid I added to the jars), tomato chunks, and the diced/shredded tomatoes we use for casseroles because they're so soft. The last type is never a goal, but sometimes they just end up soft that way, and we have uses for them. Chunks or diced always produce tomato juice, so I have that too. I'm currently waiting on a batch of plain sauce to thicken up on the stove.

Future recipes include a yellow/green sauce (that should be interesting), tomato soup, and tomatoes with celery and pepper, like the seasoned sliced tomatoes we often get. I plan on a lot more tomato chunks and sauce, as they're versatile. Paste is hard, so I may not do that unless it's by baking rather than stove top.

This is the tomato year I've been working toward since 2003... I suspect the jars I put away now will last us for a while. :)