The great stewed tomato search goes on

Naturally, I became obsessed today with stewed tomatoes.  Once I thought about them,  I had to research them thoroughly.

My first recipe was listed as “The Best Stewed Tomatoes Every.”  This was written by Brooklyn Farm Girl.  I questioned whether a New Yorker would know a tomato if they saw one.  Talk about being sterotyped.

I read the recipe and she ended up crying over making this recipe and I thought that was so sweet.  The recipe was pretty boring to me.  Tomatoes, salt, sugar, chopped green pepper and parsley.  It didn’t strike me as anything special but I may try the recipe with one tomato.  Brooklyn Farm Girl is very interesting.  If you are into gardens and cats check her out.

I’m going to cook all these recipes with just one tomato so if I find that I don’t like it I am not wasting my tomatoes.  I just asked the hubster if he was going to try them as his story of stewed tomatoes was school cafeteria food.  Not very pleasant cafeteria food either.  He said it depended on how it smelled.

The next recipe was pretty much the same but listed as Italian Stewed Tomatoes.  They added basil to their recipe.  I’d eat that.

Mint in tomatoes?  That is the special ingredient in the recipe I clicked on next.  And jalapeno pepper.

Next click and I was reminded to add lemon juice if I was going to can my stewed tomatoes.  This lady also added butter to her recipe.

My cookbook had a recipe for stewed tomatoes that called for adding bread crumbs at the end before serving.  Another recipe I clicked on line called to add these lovely homemade croutons before serving.  They looked great!

The hubster’s cookbook called for bread crumbs during the cooking of the stewed tomatoes and then had an addition recipe for Stewed Green Tomatoes.  I might try that one too.

My mother’s cookbook was tomatoes, salt, sugar and butter.  Grandma’s cookbook said the same.

One recipe called for chopped celery.  I might like that.  I love celery too.  Another recipe called for a can of tomatoes.  Can we ruin this recipe any further?

To bread crumb or to crouton?  To butter or not to butter?

My search for Mexican stewed tomatoes came up with a doozie.  She added all the Mexican herbs, oregano, cumin, cayenne and parsley.  Parsley?  Isn’t cilantro much more Mexican than parsley?  She also added celery, onions, garlic and red and green peppers.  I think if I tried this recipe I would add cilantro and not parsley.

Hungarian stewed peppers made my mouth water.  She started off with bacon grease.  A girl after my own heart!    She used tomatoes, banana or green peppers, onion, sugar, salt and paprika.  Oh my but the photo is lovely.  She suggested serving with rice or adding Debreceni sausage or smoked or fresh Hungarian sausage.  At the end of her recipe she suggested whipping 4 eggs and adding them to the tomatoes.  Strange?  And other idea was to add a fried egg.  I just love the Hungarians, don’t you?

The search for Chinese stewed tomatoes came up with listed five ingredients before listing tomatoes.  Prioritize, people!  This one chopped her onions, scallion and garlic in the food processor before sautéing it.  I love it, she suggested using Hungarian peppers, or gypsies or poblanos.  Other ingredients included coriander, soy sauce, sesame oil and rice wine vinegar.  I have all of these ingredients except the pepper so I might try this one too.

Rustic stewed tomatoes brought up a bunch of recipes with meat.  I’m thinking veggie all the way.  But that Debreceni sausage sounded pretty good.  Click on that puppy.  I didn’t know there were so many kinds of sausage.  (Could be my next obsession for a blog.)

Greek stewed tomatoes brought up a recipe for Okra and Tomatoes.  I hate okra.  It is so snotty.  This recipe called for the whole pod.  No, I’m not trying that one.

The French recipe surprised me.  I figured the snooty French would have something like escargot or Maurice Chavalier in it. (Can you believe I spelled that right on the first crack?)  But no, their recipe called for the usual, tomatoes, salt and sugar plus basil.  Then they made homemade croutons and lightly dropped on the top before serving.

The Canadians, being the boring group that they are, (just kidding) not only used Italian sausage but called for a CAN of Italian stewed tomatoes.  They can’t even make an ethnic Canadian dish!

Beef Stew came up when I surfed Japanese stewed tomatoes.  Leave it to the Japanese to mess up a perfectly simple little dish with their expensive beef.  The next down the line offered Ratatouille.  (No I had to look up the spelling.)  The recipe used three eggplants and only one tomato.

One Indian stewed tomatoes recipe was from Canada.  I love it.  Sometimes the internet can be so entertaining.  Now Martha Stewart got in on this act.  She purchased a CAN of best quality tomato sauce to make her East Indian Stew.  Who qualifies as the best quality out there?  Inquiring minds want to know.

My next hit on Indian stewed tomatoes came up with okra again.  In India they are referred to as “lady fingers”.  I refer to them as finger down my throat!  She used a pound of okra and two medium tomatoes.  No thank you.  The rest of the recipe sounded good with cayenne, cumin and turmeric added.  (Does anyone keep turmeric on hand?)  I do.

Indonesian stewed tomatoes came up with a really unique idea of putting in shredded coconut.  Actually it was a Filipino recipe.  Of course at that time I had to surf Filipino vs Philipino and the F word (?) is Anglicized.  Oh well, the world turns as usual.  Onion, garlic, onion powder and ground ginger completed the recipe.  I might try that.

My never ending search found the Jamaicans making fish and tomato stew but further down there was a Jamican recipe for Frankfurter Sausage.  Dear God!  Another sausage?  It was a video and I didn’t watch as I would be longing to be in Jamaica and yes, I would probably try the recipe in Jamaica.  I’d eat Jamaican okra to be in Jamaica.

And so I have wasted a very nice Sunday morning being obsessed with stewed tomatoes, but look here, I have my blog all ready to post for the day.  Now I need a picture to post with it.