As you probably know, I love local products. I’ve got a weekly produce delivery which is all organic and often local (when available) from Door to Door Organics and a bi-weekly dairy delivery which is hormone and antibiotic free from Calder’s Diary. I’m tantalizingly close to local organic meat delivery too, details on that soon. Buying local is important to me because it allows me to both support local businesses as well as reduce my carbon footprint by decreasing the “food miles” I consume. You won’t often get me evangelizing about all things green, but this is a movement I can get behind.

One of my favorite foods by far is tomatoes. I love them fresh, sliced on a sandwich or burger, I love cherry tomatoes in my salad. I drool over those plump, red fruits (yes, fruit) in the grocery store and add them to my delivery whenever possible. Unfortunately, there are a few inalienable truths about tomatoes.

1 – Fresh winter tomatoes…. suck
2 – Sometimes, canned tomatoes are just better for things, like when you need stewed tomatoes or whole peeled tomatoes, even tomato paste
3 – They go bad quickly, especially because you’re not supposed to refrigerate them (something about the sugar making them grainy)

Most of the winter I’ll spring for a few romas and then stick to canned tomatoes, which of course are all grown all over the world.

At least, that’s what I thought.

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Red Gold Tomatoes are an Indiana based company which sources tomatoes from the midwest, including Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana. The company sent me some more information about the farms which grow the tomatoes, which include the following:

AcMoody Farms, Inc. Union City, MI
M Forche Farms, Inc. Blissfield, MI
Iott Farms, Inc. Deerfield, MI
Iott Ranch & Orchard Petersburg, MI
Janssen Brothers Farms, Inc. Monroe, MI
KD&A Tomatoes Coldwater, MI
Lievens Bros. Farms, Inc. Petersburg, MI
Morrin Farms, Inc. Erie, MI
Stanton Country, LLC Sherwood, MI
State Line Farms Morenci, MI

Of course, now comes the test. Do they hold up to my standards? How well do they cook? What do they taste like? What’s with the bright yellow label?

I can answer a few of these questions now, and over the next few weeks I’ll be using a few additional products.

Tonight after my fairly successful Goat Cheese Stuffed Chicken adventure, I wanted to use up the rest of my goat cheese. I decided to pull out the can of Red Gold Tomatoes with olive oil and garlic to create a basic tomato sauce and provide a base for the goat cheese, which I can serve over some leftover pasta from the other night.

I heated up my skillet and tossed in the can of tomatoes.

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The first thing I noticed was the texture (visual) of these tomatoes. Most canned tomatoes don’t hold up too well after canning, but these held a good firm shape and looked a whole lot like I’d diced them myself. Excellent first impression.

I roasted the tomatoes over medium heat with a pinch of salt and pepper, but this specific variety of tomatoes came with a bit of spices already so I did not want to add much. I cooked off most of the liquid and softened the tomatoes. The wonderful aroma that the simple can of tomatoes provided even peeked my husband’s interest.

Since I’d already eaten tonight, I put the sauce on top of some leftover pasta from yesterday and topped that with some goat cheese. Of course, I had a little bite on the side before I put it all away. I was not disappointed in the slightest. The cooked texture of the tomatoes was exactly what I like and the flavor was very robust.

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I’m looking forward to trying a few other varieties of Red Gold Tomatoes. So far I have not seen a tomato paste product by this company, so I’ll have to see if that exists at all. Can’t live without tomato paste. They also have a ketchup, which is sitting in my cupboard and I’m eying it suspiciously. I’m a Heinz girl through and through, but I’ll try anything for the love of food and local.