Food Storage Friendly Friday and Tip of the Week

The rising cost of fresh vegetables is sad. Who doesn’t have lots of lots of recipes that use fresh tomatoes and peppers? What about fresh limes? So, what do you do? Do you not buy them? Do you just ignore the price and buy them anyway, if you can get them and even though the quality may not be very good? Do you go without something else so you can afford them?

One blog I was reading suggested substituting canned tomatoes or salsa in your recipes using fresh tomatoes as much as you can. Maybe you are already doing this. I know we had salsa instead of fresh tomatoes in our “American Tacos” last night. No it isn’t the same but its okay. I don’t think $3 tomatoes taste that good anyway.

Another benefit of this is that you can begin to see how storing canned tomatoes and salsa will convert some of your regular dishes to food storage dishes. Not sure what we’ll do without lettuce, but some things can’t be helped, I guess.

This week’s tip is to see which dishes you can convert to food storage recipes with the use of canned tomatoes or salsa. Maybe some of you use dried tomatoes in the place of fresh. If you do, I’d love to hear about it. When you find some recipes that you can convert, email them to me and we’ll all try them. One thing is for sure; everyone can benefit from some more food storage friendly recipes.

One of our readers wrote this to me: “Pam--I have actually made bruschetta out of canned tomatoes before when I had French bread but didn't have roma or garden tomatoes and wanted to make a snack for the family.” Jeri B. – Arizona

Here is a recipe for that. You can tweak it to your liking and maybe this will make us not miss fresh tomatoes quite so much.

Bruschetta - Adapted from recipe by Sue S.- Arizona 1 Can petite diced tomatoes, drained (keep a little of the juice on it if you'd like) or diced tomatoes from the garden
A few shakes of dried basil or fresh if you have it in the garden
A few light shakes of garlic powder or to taste
A few shakes of balsamic vinegar
A few shakes of olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Combine drained tomatoes, basil, garlic powder and a few shakes of vinegar (to your taste). Add Salt and pepper. Spritz French bread slices with olive before broiling. Top with tomato mixture and serve immediately. *I think any fresh herbs, chopped and added would also be a wonderful addition.