I believe since ketchup and spaghetti sauce are cooked, it's fine.  The scare involved RAW tomatoes

Yes.. anything cooked is fine.

Plus, most tomato based products take a lot longer to process than fresh produce.. so chances are anything that went through a food processing plant predates the whole scare by a number of months.

Indeed. What WoofWoof said is true. Have you not been paying attention to the news?

tomato scare tomata schmare. i've been eating raw tomatoes this week like crazyyy. last night on my turkey burger and we have a thing of grape tomatoes in the fridge that i keep snacking on. in fact, now that i think of it, i just grab a handful and go; i don't even wash them....now that i think of it, i don't feel so good....JUST KIDDING! I figure if i'm gonna get salmonella, it's gonna be from my water turtle and i've had him for 10+ years and have never seen sign of the illness, so, bring on the tomatoes!

Suppost? If that the same as supposed tj?

I have to admit, OldBlue, that I found that to be one of the most hilarious mistakes I've seen on the blogs lately.

I know Robin. tj is not the sharpest knife in the drawer.....

Who knew the '70s movie "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" was going to be this prophetic?

First spinach ... now tomatoes ...

What's next? Tainted milk?

WoooHooo!! OB is back in full action, yeah!!

Just caught a Guys Big Bite show on foodnetwork..he made some home made ketchup to put over some stuffed burgers on a bun..

Worcestershire Tomato Ketchup:
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup diced red onion
8 Roma tomatoes, skinned, seeded, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh dill
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Pinch allspice
Pinch celery salt
Pinch mustard seed

simmer covered over heat to mix the ingredients  then toss it in a blender..it was thick and had a brownish color when he dolloped it ontop of the burger....looked mighty tasty and im not a big ketchup fan..

I love Guy.  Especially Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.  I have a secret crush on him.  Shhhhhhh, don't tell Hubby. 

That ketchup looks like a good recipe. I may just have to print it out and pass it on to my mom. We've been trying to make different things like mayonnaise, so this sounds interesting. We don't get the Food Network ... or any other network, for that mater. 

I hope I can get a good amount of tomatoes out of 27 plants this year. Can't wait until they start ripening. I love growing my own vegetables.

Jeez, SMayer, I hope milk doesn't become tainted. That's the one thing we don't have right now, although we do plan on getting a cow specifically for milking someday.

Robin -- 27 tomato plants?? You're going to have overflowing buckets of the plump, red orbs.

Ah, but there's nothing like a home-grown tomato, picked fresh from the vine.

Maybe with a touch of fresh basil and olive oil? Or just sliced and lightly salted? Or eaten in the back yard like an apple, the juice dripping down the chin?

Summer does have its perks.

To be honest, we started our tomatoes late this year, so the ones I grew from seed in April are way behind, but the ones we bought from stores are on track to produce at the right time. I still can't wait, though. I plan to make a ton of salsa as soon as the tomatoes start to produce on a regular basis. You're right. Summer certainly does have its perks! I'm trying to get some basil growing, along with a ton of other things in our garden. I'm excited about it.

Ahhh, caught ya Robin! YOU MADE A TYPO! mater - matter!!

We have a small salza garden going this year..2 ma toes ..whalop penos ..bells and misc eurps..

Last year we let the kids grow one by themselves for the experince..they got minime watermelons.. tons of squash.. and their korn was attacked by aliens..had a weird lookin growth inside where the kernels were supposed to be...Oh and best of all...an abundant amount of gourds..YUM

Not quite sure why some people find it necessary to ridicule someone for their spelling or grammar ... my guess is you were a school bully and still have to prove that you're superior to others ... grow-up!  

As far as the tomatoe scare ... I was wondering the same thing TJ.  

Woof, thanks for the info.   

Go ahead OB .... I just couldn't resist giving you & the rest of the spelling hounds something to correct me on.

Sioux, that's what I did last year. My parents had to work all summer and didn't really have any time to help me out, so I took the garden into my own hands. I believe I had my dad or brother till the dirt up with the tractor, and then I took it all into my own hands. I grew some from seed and my parents bought other plants from various stores. One by one, I looked at my garden and planted things where I thought they might do well. The tomatoes, although late, did well, because tomatoes are so easy to grow. I planted a bunch of zucchini and crookneck, and although I didn't get much crooknecks growing, the ones that did produce were a nice size -- a lot bigger than the ones my sister had grown at her house. I had plenty of zucchini because they kept producing like crazy. I also had eggplants and peppers.

This year my dad has more time, and he seems to have taken over the whole garden for himself. He annoys the heck out of me, because he doesn't let me do anything the way I want to do it. He got the tractor out and tilled it, and then he put the rows in, so it looks nice. I just wish he'd let me make some of the decisions sometimes. I hope we can get the corn in this year; it'd cut down on the animal feed bill. This year we have peppers, tomatoes and cilantro, so if we can keep it living and producing, we should have a nice salsa garden.

People make mistakes, Bakonative. I'm only human. The difference between so many others and me is that I know the English language very well, so I'm less likely to make a spelling or grammatical error and more likely to make a simple typographical error. On the other hand, many people on the blogs seem to lack a decent amount of knowledge when it comes to the English language and more often make hideous mistakes that make me cringe. Sometimes I get tired of reading my own writing over and over, searching for those little errors, so I give up and press submit. I get sick of being an obsessive-compulsive perfectionist all the time. That's when I'm entitled to make a mistake.

Blossom, the reason Bakonative called me out on my error is because I am known very rarely to make a mistake, and I am also a copy editor. Copy editor = newspaper term for "proofreader," basically. I read through people's stories and correct their errors.

sounds like you live out in the northwest robin or one of the smaller towns here in Kern..We lived in Wasco a few years back and it was great. Our vege bill was almost non existent..we always had a friend that knew somebody that had a huge garden growing somewhere..I'm talk a couple acres worth..

During the weekend we would jump on our horses and go for a spin down those long country roads going from garden to garden..tucking next weeks salad makins and fruit into our saddle bags..mind you we didn't get greedy because we didn't want the grower to tell us not to come back...back then everybody pretty much knew his neighbor anyway..Living in small farming communities does have its perks

Honey Bee Crisis Could Push Food Prices Even Higher 

WASHINGTON — Food prices could rise even more unless the mysterious decline in honey bees is solved, farmers and businessmen told lawmakers Thursday.

"No bees, no crops," North Carolina grower Robert D. Edwards told a House Agriculture subcommittee. Edwards said he had to cut his cucumber acreage in half because of the lack of bees available to rent.

About three-quarters of flowering plants rely on birds, bees and other pollinators to help them reproduce. Bee pollination is responsible for $15 billion annually in crop value.

In 2006, beekeepers began reporting losing 30 percent to 90 percent of their hives. This phenomenon has become known as Colony Collapse Disorder. Scientists do not know how many bees have died; beekeepers have lost 36 percent of their managed colonies this year. It was 31 percent for 2007, said Edward B. Knipling, administrator of the Agriculture Department's Agricultural Research Service.

"If there are no bees, there is no way for our nation's farmers to continue to grow the high quality, nutritious foods our country relies on," said Democratic Rep. Dennis Cardoza of California, chairman of the horticulture and organic agriculture panel. "This is a crisis we cannot afford to ignore."

Food prices have gone up 83 percent in three years, according to the World Bank.

Edward R. Flanagan, who raises blueberries in Milbridge, Maine, said he could be forced to increase prices tenfold or go out of business without the beekeeping industry. "Every one of those berries owes its existence to the crazy, neurotic dancing of a honey bee from flower to flower," he said.

The cause behind the disorder remains unknown. Possible explanations include pesticides; a new parasite or pathogen; and the combination of immune-suppressing stresses such as poor nutrition, limited or contaminated water supplies and the need to move bees long distances for pollination.

http://www.huffingtonpost.c...