Totally Tomatoes

We love sharing our grown or prepared food with family and neighbors- especially when we have an abundance of it! Our next door neighbor, Stan, is a single guy that smiles cheek to cheek when we're at the door. We like to deliver homemade goodies or fresh eggs whenever we can. Someone's gotta look out for those single guys, right? Well, one day that single guy brought over this basket. It was full of beautiful ripe apricots, plums, and apples. As a thank you, we emptied it and sent it back over full of fresh eggs and a variety of garden tomatoes. I mean we couldn't just send over an empty basket!

He's been telling his friends at work about our eggs and wants a business card to pass out (?!). Um, I'll work on that...haha. Anyway, we went crazy this summer with a variety of tomatoes from our garden. Some of them were as big as my face- and I have a big face! These tomatoes are just from one day of picking...

We struggled to keep up with the tomato harvest this year because it fell right during summer break with so much vacationing and swimming to keep us otherwise occupied. Of course we made salsa, but that doesn't stay fresh for very long. You can freeze it or cook and bottle it, but it's just not the same. We ate tomatoes with eggs for breakfast, with sandwiches and salads at lunch, and pasta and pizza at dinner...but we still had so many left!

Tired of our kitchen and fridge covered in tomatoes, my hubby finally just made a huge batch of stewed tomatoes. He cut up the large tomatoes and left the cherry tomatoes whole. Crushed garlic, onion, basil and herbs from our garden, salt and sugar (to taste) all added wonderful flavor and aroma. Our house smelled like Italy (well, I've never been to Italy, so I'm only guessing). These all stewed in the crock pot for the day and then we bottled what we wouldn't be able to eat that week.

We bottled some in large jars as well and used those already to feed my extended family the best pasta dish I've ever had. Hubby made homemade spaghetti noodles (I'll post later) and meatballs and poured the tomatoes over the top. We've also put it in the blender when we've needed a sauce that's not so chunky. Hubby's all time favorite is to put this on a slice of my homemade french bread with mozzarella, basil, and some 18 yr old balsamic we got while on vacation. Yum!

Enjoy your tomato harvest!