We don't even get started with a 5-gal bucket, not worth it. We make tomato juice (very thick) for chili, try to get about 50-60 qts, spaghetti sauce (another 30-40 pints&half), some diced tomatoes with onions/peppers (misc recipes, about 50 1/2 pints). We don't use alot of tomatoes, but try to have enough canned of any 1 crop to last 2 years. We do this because we never know if the next year's crop will be a success or not. Have done this for years, so every other year or so, we'll do tomatoes, another year-beans, another year-corn. We do peas and beets whenever we can get a good crop or deal. I raised 3 boys back in the 70-80s and kept my food budget down to about $20-30 per week, with help from the garden. Now we live on less than $1200 per month for EVERYTHING.

Some have posted in the past that they use frozen tomatoes to make it - just more soupy. Re-canning previously canned items isn't generally recommended. So the frozen ones would be 1st choice I think. Of course it is done - using previously canned things - just do so with care. If I didn't have frozen ones I think I'd use commercially caned ones. JMO Dave

Use whatever you have. I mix mine up using half paste (Striped Roma) or drying tomatoes (Principe Borghese) and half mixed heirloom and field tomatoes (Rutgers), give or take. I also drain off the juice collected over a bowl when I cut up the toms (the meat goes in a colander to collect more juice). Then I cook the liquids down to about half and put it back into the main pot. I've also used tomato juice that I had canned a few years back, boiled it 10 min, added a tad of lemon juice and used that as a substitute for the sauce and paste the original recipe called for. Much more intense tomato flavor. Don't worry - Annie's perfect recipe will give you a wonderful salsa every time. I've even used all yellow and orange tomatoes and juice and though the color is different - it is still wonderful. Nancy

OSGW, You're welcome. If you wanna talk tomatoes, I'm always available and could talk tomatoes forever. : ) Of course, if you've read the posts on this forum for more than a week, you already know that. And, I should mention that there are many marvelous heirloom paste and plum tomatoes available from Sandhill Preservation Center that I haven't tried yet. There's so many tomatoes......and so little time. I still hope others will add their favorites. And I'm still working on my list of tomato varieties to grow for 2009.....just like Santa, "making a list and checking it twice". And I would like to add Mariseeds (www.mariseeds.com) as another potential source, and Totally Tomatoes (www.totallytomatoes.com) too. The only thing with Mariseeds is that Marianna loves every variety she sells and her descriptions reflect that and sort of "gush" about the qualities of each one. And, Totally Tomatoes is NOT totally tomatoes although it was once upon a time, but it does have a nice selection of tomatoes. Some of the smaller seed companies, like Marianna's and Sandhill probably won't have their websites updated for 2009 until after Christmas though. Dawn