How To Make Stewed Tomatoes

A festival triumvirate

June 11 and 12 the Louisiana Cajun-Zydeco Festival , the Louisiana Seafood Festival and the Creole Tomato Festival coincide to form the mighty triumvirate of fun called the New Orleans Vieux To Do. All are located in the French Quarter. Food vendors, a crafts fair and three stages of music are offered.

Starting at 11 a.m. and going until 7 p.m. on both days, some of our locals featured to perform are Terrance Simien & the Zydeco Experience, The Lost Bayou Ramblers, Roddie Romero & the Hub City Allstars, Beausoleil avec Michael Doucet, Nathan Williams & the Zydeco Cha Chas and Horace Trahan & the Ossun Express among others. The Louisiana Cajun-Zydeco Festival will take place at the old U.S. Mint.

The Creole Tomato Festival happens a few steps down in the French Market. Why celebrate a tomato? This fruit is the biggest differentiation between Cajun and Creole cooking. If you have ever been in New Orleans for a gumbo only to make plans for the exit when your pal adds a bunch of stewed tomatoes to the roiling pot, don't hold it against them. That's just the difference several bridges have made between us and them.

The Louisiana Seafood Festival of 2011 is, of all years, some serious business. Louisiana's seafood reputation has been tarnished due to no fault of the fisherman and it is still delicious seafood that needs to be celebrated. Bywater Bar-B-Que will be there offering up an oyster and artichoke florentine and shrimp remoulade stuffed tomato; Vaucresson's Sausage Company will have Creole hot sausage po'boy and Creole crawfish sausage po'boy; Brocatos's Eat Dat has shrimp and roasted corn cheese grits, Cajun shrimp and crawfish etoufee and shrimp remoulade wraps, and there are more but to write about them is torture to the tastebuds and tummy.

It's all free, so if you feel like a roadtrip consider this a great option.

Eva Coombes' Southern Style "Leftover" Breaded Stewed Tomatoes

If you like foods with a little bit of spice, sweet and tangy to the tongue (much like sweet and sour savory Chinese food) then this recipe is for you! This recipe is almost like a tomato pudding.

This is one of those unusual frugal dishes that make use of leftover bread that would otherwise wind up in your trash. A “make use of leftover” recipe that somehow got lost with the passage of time. I like to share with you an old family recipe that has been handed down from my mother to me and now to you!

Ingredients:

Step 1:

2 tablespoons butter or margarine

1 medium onion (peeled and diced)

¼ of a green bell pepper (diced coarsely)

1tablespoon minced garlic

1 medium green chili (diced finely)

Step 2:

1 can stewed tomatoes (14oz can)

1 small can tomato sauce (4oz size)

1 tablespoon Italian herb blend spices

1/3 cup brown sugar

¼ to ½ cup water

Step 3:

4 to 6 slices bread (left over bread from the last of the loaf)

2 tablespoons bacon bits

Salt and pepper to taste

Step 1

In a medium sized sauce pan over medium heat add butter and heat until hot. Add onion, bell pepper, garlic, chilies and cook until the onions begin to become translucent. (Cooking time about 5 to 10 minutes)

Step 2

When onions have reached the right consistency, add stewed tomatoes, tomato sauce, Italian herbs, brown sugar, and water to ingredients in sauce pan and heat over medium heat until contents of pan begins to boil. Stir contents as needed. (Cooking time will be about 5-10 minutes.)

Step 3

When the ingredients start to boil, you will want to turn the heat down until the contents of the pan begin to simmer. Take the leftover stale bread and tear it into large chunks and keep adding the bread until the bread begins to thicken and soak up all the excess liquid in the pan.

(That is the whole idea of the recipe. This is what you want the bread to do.)

Continue adding more and more bread until the ingredients begin to slightly stick together and cling to the spoon as you are stirring the ingredients. You want to add only enough bread to soak up the liquid. You don’t want the contents of the pan to become too dry, but at the same time you do not want ingredients to be too soupy or runny. You want the ingredients to remain soft and moist. When the ingredients begin to stick together as you stir then it is done.

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