Today from the garden

Cherry Tomatoes

Kale

One plant's worth of red potatoes

A wee bit of peas 

Red Gold Tomatoes

Not long ago, I got a fun box in the mail. When I opened it up I found Gold! Red Gold Tomatoes ~ Yum!!  I love their mission, “To produce the freshest, best-tasting tomato products in the world.” - sounds good to me!  Let's give them a whirl.

I eagerly found a recipe in the book, opened up a can of 'maters and set to work. I hadn't ever used Red Gold Tomatoes before so I opened up a can of my typical brand to compare. They look pretty much the same and the flavor was pretty close but the Red Gold can had firmer tomatoes, less mushy.

I made the Cheeseburger Macaroni dish (since I didn't have a can of stewed, I used the can of diced) from page 52, living in Wisconsin I knew anything with cheese would be a hit with my boys. We all loved it, very simple, easy clean up, and I not only used the lean ground beef I used wheat noodles to make it even a bit more healthy.

A few days later, we decided to check out the ketchups - my husband loved the jalapeno ketchup - he said he could taste the flavor of the jalapeno but it didn't drown the tomato taste.  He was pleased.  I love the standard ketchup (I'm not a jalapeno girl), it was thick and tasted very tomatoey - NICE!  We've found a not-so-bad-for-us hotdog that's pretty tasty too - Hebrew National has a fat free version that only has 40 calories per dog - pretty impressive if you've ever checked the calorie content of one - if you pair it with a low cal slice of bread and mustard and ketchup you can have a hot dog for about 90 calories - great for summertime cookouts.

Yesterday we took what was left of the cheese and mixed it with one of the cans diced tomatoes and green chilies and started dipping.  I wouldn't mind getting a box like this in the mail every month!

Red Gold has been producing premium quality tomato products since 1942 and Red Gold’s Tomatoes are processed from vine to can within 24hours from their Indiana, Ohio and Michigan farm fields.

We are trying to eat healthier and the more I read about the company, the more I am impressed. Wish the billboard was still up in Memphis I would stop by on our way through and check out those huge 3D cans "big enough to hold 1,500 racks of Memphis ribs".

watch me grow

You may remember back in March I planted a whole slew of seeds, tomatoes, wildflowers, and various flowers (along with some cactus that have been demolished by dogs and baby). I have watered, tended and talked to my little green babies for months and now I am beginning to reap some benefits.

First I discovered the tomatoes plants were beginning to bloom. Yay, we might have tomatoes after all.

Since I planted some wildflower mixes I don’t know what all of the flowers are but I’m liking them so far. I think I have actually seen some of these in the wild. Let’s look a little closer.

I just love the fuzzies on the tomato plants.

Moss Rose is a favorite of mine and I really think it’s because my mom always had a huge pan full of them. So far I only have yellow ones, but yellow is my mom’s favorite color.

They are so delicate and frilly. The blooms are not much bigger than a quarter. So it’s really neat to see inside them like this.

Dunno what it is. But it’s pretty, no?

This is the moss rose again, but I really like it because you can see the sheen in the petals.

For quite a while before this bloom opened I feared the buds had died on the stalk. They looked kinda brown and dried up, then the next day one popped open, one more the next day, and another the next.

Our first tiny little tomato! We now have 10-15. Won’t be long now.