Red Gold petite diced are usually what I buy. I think that brand taste more like home canned.

Cento is my favorite.

All sorts. They've been around for decades. Generic works as good any brand. I was noticing when making chili/soups etc. Canned tomatoes-any cut hold up more than my from my garden frozen I have from this summer. Maybe it's the freezing vs canning? The trick is to find those that don't add corn syrup!!

I was glad to finally find tomato paste in a tube in stores several years ago

Arcy, I know, right? Sugar or corn syrup is added to so many things that don't need it!

Red Gold for me too. Mostly Ketchup, petite diced tomatoes, and tomato juice. Their headquarters is near me. They have an outlet store in town and you can buy their products and other labels there by the case.

Sue

I use the petite dice tomatoes for chili. I make and can spaghetti sauce from fresh Roma tomatoes. I used to grow them but the last few years I have purchased them from local farm markets.

I use tomato puree and paste for my spaghetti sauce, which I make in a large quantity and freeze in baggies, About 15-20 dinners for two in each batch. I also buy and use whatever brand of diced tomatoes that I find in 8-packs at Costco.

Hunts San Marzano style whole, peeled tomatoes. 28oz.

I use all different types. Depends on what I am making. Cento is my favorite brand. The tomatoes go through the food mill the easiest and the flavor is good.

One problem that I have had with the diced tomatoes is that they don't always cook up as soft as you might expect them to. I have heard, or read, that there is something that they are processed with that causes them to resist cooking soft. I think that it is the acid that is used in processing, but don't repeat that to you sister in law as a fact. It is not a natural state for tomatoes to be able to be in small firm chunks like that. While it seems to be a good thing, I have found that they don't always do well.

Even though I don't have a garden or enough sunshine in my small yard to have one, I do buy tomatoes from the local farm in what I believe to be about a peck by volume. I get maybe 10 to 12 quarts from each box as I can them up. It is not for economy that I do this. I do this because it is quality that I get.

By the time late Spring and early Summer rolls around I am getting down to just a few jars and I will then buy some commercial ones.

To my surprise I discovered that what I like is the Muir Glen tomatoes, crushed or whole. I was surprised at how they meet my standards! I had a bad opinion of them for years and I don't remember why.

If what I am cooking does not have the tomatoes as a front and center part of essence, I will use a commercial tomato. If the tomatoes really count, I will use one of my own jars.

One thing that I don't like in commercial tomatoes are the really thick and sweet ones, and that includes tomato paste that I don't have any use for. Crushed, diced and whole are all good, depending on what they are used for. But I don't like when there is added puree in the can. And, would never buy one with added sugar. I don't think that happens except in prepared pasta sauce.

Here is something that I have discovered about tomato sauce that seems too acidic for your taste. If you add sugar to it you are, basically, making something akin to lemonade. What I have found that works well is to add a pinch of baking soda to the cooking pot. At first it will foam up all pink and frothy looking. After about a minute it will subside and turn back to deep red in color and the acid will have been altered and it will be a natural sweet taste. I had this realization when hubby had acid indigestion with too much tomato sauce. If occurred to me that it might make more sense to put the baking soda in the sauce rather than into hubby. To my surprise it works beautifully. Try it. Just a pinch, maybe about 1/4 teaspoon for a large can if tomatoes, Taste and see if you need more. I do this after the sauce has been prepared and is simmering. But, I guess you could do this at just about any place in the cooking. I suppose you could add it to the tomatoes right from the can, but I do it when it gets to the simmer.

My canned farm tomatoes may not be paste tomatoes, but they still make a mean pasta sauce.

I don't use many. I keep a couple of small cans of tomato sauce on hand....just the plain kind, which are getting harder to find because everything is low sodium or garlic or basil or something else, and I keep on hand a couple of cans of petite diced tomatoes, which I use in a favorite bean recipe. That's all.

We buy diced canned tomatoes, to use in chili, and minestrone. I buy whatever is on sale.

Wednesdaymorning, it's calcium chloride, which is a firming agent, that helps keep commercially canned diced tomatoes from cooking up soft. (Check the ingredient labeling so you know what to expect from the product.)

I use them in a couple of recipes where I want the tomatoes to retain shape & texture.

Like this one, a family favorite:

https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/penne-in-cream-sauce-with-sausage-3072

If you want the tomatoes to melt away in a sauce or casserole dish, don't use the canned, diced product.

They have a nice niche but I don't consider them to be all purpose.

Tomatoes are a member of the nightshade family, so I don't use many. Also, they aren't one of my favorite foods by any means. The one way I really like to eat them is out of hand, standing in the garden, fresh off the vine and warm from the sun, tomato in one hand and salt shaker in the other. But I don't garden anymore. Or, said fresh picked tomato on a BLT.

If I do make something that requires tomatoes, I buy whatever seems best suited for the recipe I'm making. But I don't get the 'flavored' kind, just plain tomatoes, thank you. I don't use them often enough to notice any difference in brands.

Rusty

A large portion of tomato products come from independent growers and oftentimes (but not always) independent tomato processing companies. Which is to say, many brands have the same tomatoes inside. Flavoring and chemicals may differ but often not the tomatoes.

I try to get Italian tomatoes. Whole or cut are more flexible, you can always cut or crush them. Pomi or Cento.

I have my own roasted tomato sauce in the freezer but when I need to buy some I buy Rao’s sauce as Mdln pictured above. I also buy tomato paste in a tube or Cento crushed or diced tomatoes for some recipes.

I agree that Cento is an excellent brand. I make my own sauce but I have bought Rao's a few times and really liked it.

Yes, many tomato products come out of the same packing company, just put a different label on them.

Sue

For canned tomatoes, I like Escalon 6 in 1 Peeled Ground Tomato Extra Heavy Puree from Northern California, but I now have to buy it from Amazon. I used to buy it at Italian delis here, but it is getting harder to find in stores now. This is the preferred canned tomatoes by the Pizza Making Forum.

I also buy tomato powder from Harmony House, but I have to transfer the powder to a glass container and add some desiccant packets to it, or else it will get hard. If it gets hard, I have to chisel it out, but it does dissolve easily, even when in chunks. It has a better flavor than tomato paste, and so I do not buy that any more, although I used to buy that in tubes.

I've never been fussy so I buy what's on sale. But I am allergic to fresh tomatos

I keep canned petite diced tomatoes on hand for chili or taco soup. I also have paste and sauce in case a recipe calls for it. And, of course, ketchup. Brand doesn't matter to me.

I always keep about 10 tins of tomatoes in my pantry. I usually by Aylmer tomatoes or Unico or Heinz if I can't get Aylmer's. I buy whole tomatoes or whole plum tomatoes and crushed. I never buy diced because I don't like the texture of the little pieces. If I buy pasta sauce it is usually the Classico brand. For supper sometimes I just open a tin of tomatoes, add some garlic and eat them warmed up with a piece of bread. Growing up we my Dad made red lead every Sunday for breakfast. He would fry the tinned tomatoes in bacon fat, not sure if he added anything else but he said that is what they ate when he was aboard ship in the Navy. I use tomato paste, have both tinned and the tube. I buy pizza sauce because I like to make a tortilla pizza for a quick lunch. I always have salsa and ketchup and sometimes Chili Sauce to put on eggs on hand. Lately though I have been preferring Salsa Verdi over tomato salsa. I always buy fresh tomatoes for sandwiches and grape or cherry tomatoes for salads. I live a short drive from the Tomato Capital of Canada so we can find some good locally made tomato, pasta, chili or pizza sauces made from locally grown tomato sold at fruit stands or local shops.

ci lantro, yes that is what I read. It is calcium chloride. Thanks for filling in that info. It really does work but it works a little too well for some recipes.

I prefer my home canned tomatoes.

About tomatoes in Canada, I have discovered that Canada has a vibrant greenhouse tomato production going on. I have to tell you that some of these tomatoes that come from these hot houses are really good!

That is a cutting edge way of farming and I hope that it continues and expands into other venues. It is a nice controlled way to grow food and tech innovations such as using solar power and conserving water and not having to use as many chemicals to control for pests is an added advantage. Plus, this kind of growing can take the growing of vegetables closer to the populations that are consuming it, thus there is less fossil fuel used to transport it.

Sure not all is positive. There is no perfect world. But it is an interesting and expanding venture.

There are green houses all around Toronto and out in the west of Canada they are popping up, too. As well as here in the US in low income areas such as Kentucky and even down in Mexico they are being established.

I would only hope that factory made housing components will grow into commonplace as quickly as the hot house growing is. Both of these innovations in growing food and building our houses can have significant impacts on our environment, our economy and our lifestyle. They are progressive ideas that I hope will continue to progress.

Kingsville and Leamington have more greenhouse operations than anywhere in North America. Some hot house tomatoes actually taste like outdoor field tomatoes. They export a lot of mini cucumbers, cherry and grape tomatoes and the large tomatoes. Those greenhouses are also creating a lot of light pollution in the night sky that can be seen from Windsor. GREENHOUSE LIGHT POLLUTION

On the West Coast a lot of fresh tomatoes found on the market are from hothouses in nearby Mexico.

This isn't recent or new. There are other such operations in several Western US Sunbelt states too. I believe there are greenhouses are in California, Arizona, and Nevada.

Tomatoes are perishable and soft. I suspect many production sites are located close to markets where they're sold to minimize transportation time and distances.

We attended a International Assessors meeting in Vancouver probably 15 years ago. We saw many multistory hot houses with greenery clear to the top. The bus driver mentioned that those were tomatoes being grown. Tomatoes are one of the things that can live and produce for several years in the correct growing conditions.

Even the Amish/Mennonite/Anabaptist community are using them in a couple of areas of this state. Earlier this year the garden center owner mentioned that the type of tomatoes provided by the growers for the CSA would be switching from hot house to regular. The boxes had the name of the tomato as Duke but in researching probably Duce since they purchase seed from Johnny's. Excellent real tomato flavor.

My main tomato product: Catsup

On occasion, I do use diced tomatoes for making a pot of chili.

I have never known a tomato plant to keep producing season after season. At least not one that is subject to changing light and temperature.

The indeterminate ones will produce until the light begins to fade or the temps change.

Maybe in the hot house it might be different, being that is is a controlled environment.

I look and hope for more of this kind of thing to become a part of our life.

The light pollution could be a problem but if we are not wasting so much time and energy on an insistence on doing things the old fashioned way, maybe a working solution could come about.

We have so much knowledge and so much technology that we really could do things much better. And, we need some innovation, badly.