That is one of the many big advantages of just canning most things in their plain, basic form. Can the tomatoes plain and then you can make them into whatever you want when you DO have all the necessary ingredients.

Another advantage is then you can season and flavor to taste rather than just hoping the flavor is something you will like rather than a waste of food or worrying that the seasonings will turn bitter sitting in the jar.

Dave

I've been canning like crazy all week, thought I'd try this recipe since it didn't make a huge amount, not a big commitment ;-)

There are only so many "stewed" tomatoes we can eat, I use them only when making chili or "Italian stew" in the crockpot, during the school year a lot of our meals are either crockpot or "dump and heat" types so I don't really "make" dinner (other than the crockpot type) from basic ingredients.

And I'm still looking for a good tomato sandwich spread - thought this was worth trying since pixie lou said the Ball bruschetta was too vinegary.

Hi Ajs - I don't feel like skimming a couple pages to find the thread where we were talking about slow roasting tomatoes. Have you tried it yet? For the past 2 days I've been slow roasting slicer tomatoes. My local farm stand didn't have any roma type tomatoes in the seconds/canning boxes. And I wasn't going to pay $2.99 lb for them. I'm just making slices about 1/4" - 1/2" thick, lie them on my sheet pan and roast them. I'm just spraying the pan with PAM (no parchment), drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Into a 200 oven. It takes about 12 hours to finish a tray. I'm having no issues with too much liquid. It's all evaporating.

I also did a tray of cherry tomatoes this way. I cut the larger cherries in half. The smaller ones, I just put a tiny cut in to break the skin. Those only took about 8 hours in the oven. They look like multi colored raisins!

I'm also cooking up tons of marinara. Hoping to get 80 pints put up soon.

I wish I lived a little closer to you. I'd buy my tomatoes from you!

80 pints? Wow! I had some Speckled Romans (did sell 3 lbs to a neighbor, I was saving or myself but she was making sauce), so made the Bruschetta anyway (1 Tsbp onion instead of shallot, no green onion/tops) and then used half romans and half BW to make the chunky tomato basil sauce yesterday. Couldn't find the corkscrew, thought I'd have to open the wine with my teeth LOL. Anyway, my BW are so juicy even after getting phone call from HS and letting it cook 10 minutes longer than planned, I ended up with about 1C more than recipe called for - but not enough to process another jar. Also had leftover bruschetta, probably will combine the 2 to make a full quart for a meal this w/e.

I really wonder sometimes if it's worth it to spend all the time and electricity canning tomatoes/salsa/sauce when they're so inexpensive in stores. I know, I can buy cheap jam too, but I get much more satisfaction out of the homemade jam.

Now that the weather is cooling off, I will run the oven and try the slicers on a broiling pan (too juicy for dehydrator, though I have tons of cherry toms left over from market last Friday that I can try in the Excalibur today).

If you lived closer to me, I'd *give* you tomatoes (well, maybe not enough for 80 pints, but I'd give you a good price LOL) - maybe trade for some marinara!