Sunday, March 24, 2013

How to Substitute Home Canned Tomatoes for Stewed Tomatoes




Hello everyone!  I've been M.I.A. for a long time from my little blog here and I have no excuse.  **grins sheepishly**  I'm so sorry.

If you're like me, you'll be glad to know this little tidbit.  You see, I never really fully understood the difference between stewed tomatoes and canned tomatoes.  I just figured a tomato is a tomato, right?  Well, apparently I was wrong.  I'm pretty sure this would explain why some of the recipes I try only turn out so-so while all the reviewers a raving about the dish.  Hmmmm.........

I found an awesome tip today for substituting stewed tomatoes in a recipe with our home canned tomatoes here, this was my "Aha!" moment.  LOL.  Yes, sometimes I am a bit slow.

Alas, I could not pin said tip to Pinterest from there for some reason, so I found this beautiful photo online (just for reference because I am currently out of fresh home canned tomatoes so I could not take my own photo). :(  Fortunately, Spring is coming so tomatoes will soon be bountiful once again.  Yayy!!

Anyway, so here's the tip:

Taste of Home Test Kitchen Editors say that typically, stewed tomatoes contain celery, onion, green pepper, sugar and salt.  As a substitute for each 14 1/2 oz. can of stewed tomatoes, try adding the following amounts for each 14 1/2 oz. quantity of home canned tomatoes used to duplicate the flavor of stewed tomatoes:

3 Tbsp finely chopped celery
2 Tbsp finely chopped onion
1 Tbsp finely chopped green bell pepper
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt

There ya have it folks, adding a few more "from scratch" ingredients to your home canned tomatoes practically creates a whole new use for them.  I hope everyone finds this tip as helpful as I did.  Have a wonderful day.