Homemade Stewed Tomatoes!!

My husband's garden is producing an abundence of tomatoes this year!! Our best year yet!! Prior to this year's crop, we were, occasionally, able to make our homemade stewed tomatoes, which my husband loves to add to his famous homecooked recipes. Normally, we have to purchase the canned stewed tomatoes (not going to mention any brands) and they are not cheap! Stewed tomatoes are great in so many recipes, not only for gravies. Dip recipes will often include stewed spicy tomatoes in their list of ingredients.

So anyway, this year, because of the great crop we are having, we have had the opportunity of preserving the tomatoes using the process that I learned from my older sister and mother-in-law. I will go through the process here, but please keep in mind that I am not a writer, especially one to write recipes, but I will give it a shot!!

Ingredients:
Ripe (but not too ripe) tomatoes
Bell peppers
Banana peppers
Hot peppers (I use jalepeno - that is what we grow in our garden - but you can use any hot peppers you prefer)
Salt
Garlic Powder
Suger

First, of course, I started by washing my home grown tomatoes.  This batch, I had about 50 ripe (but not too ripe) tomatoes.  I begin by boiling water.  I use a large cooking pot, and after the water begins to boil, I start adding the tomatoes....whole.  I do this process so the I can peel the skin off of the tomatoes.  This makes the process a whole lot easier!!  Leave the tomatoes in the boiling water for only about 30-60 seconds.  That is all it will take to blanch the tomatoes, causing the skins to come right off.  Use gloves when peeling the tomatoes...they will be hot from the boiling water!!

In the picture below I am removing the skin from the tomatoe and as you can see I am wearing gloves - HOT TOMATO!!



Once you are finished removing the skins from the tomatoes, dice the tomatoes into chunkes.  In the picture below, my wonderful husband had already cut the different peppers we use and I am adding the tomatoes to the pepper mixture as I remove the skin and cut the tomatoes into chunks.

After I have finished peeling and cutting all my tomatoes, it is time to start cooking.  I have all my tomatoes and peppers (of my choice - you can add any type peppers you enjoy), it is time to add salt, garlic powder and suger.  The amount of each really depends on your preference.  I tend to go a little light on the seasoning since for the most part we will adding this to gravies in which we will add more seasoning at the time of cooking our main dish.  But sometimes we just like to eat the tomatoes like this, and the seasoning would be "to taste."  But again, at that time when you are cooking the tomatoes, you could add more seasoning if you feel it necessary.

Look how pretty!!!  Ready to start cooking!!  I cook my tomatoe/pepper mixture on medium to high heat for about 1 hour.  Until everything, especially the peppers are tender.

This is what it looks like after cooking for about 45 minutes:

After removing the mixture from the stove, allow to cool.  From there I package my tomatoes in freezer zip lock bags.  I lay them flat so that they don't take up too much room in my freezer. This batch made 12 quart size bags.  I usually put about 1 1/2 cups in each quart size bag.  That is a perfect amount to use for our recipes. 

We already have a windowsill full of tomatoes, so I will probably be doing this again next weekend!! 

Have a great Monday and rest of the week!!