Stewed Tomatoes - Easy Recipe and "Why do I have black spots?"

GREEN BEAN "RECIPE": So I was wondering the other day what other people use stewed tomatoes for and came across a site where someone says they use stewed tomatoes with green beans. I thought this sounded tasty and I did have some stewed toms left over that wasn't enough to fill a jar for canning. I had DH buy some green beans from the fruit market so I could make it with the stewed toms.

It turned out so YUMMY especially with the spicy kick. We snapped up about a pound of beans then I started the beans in a steamer basket which is how I normally cook them. For the last 6 minutes I simply transferred the beans to a pot and cooked them with about 1 cup of stewed toms in a pot. I suppose you could cook them all together at once in a pot and skip the steamer basket, but make sure you have enough liquid so as not to burn everything. So easy, but so tasty! I'll bet this would be tasty as a cold picnic dish too - I might try that since I do have a picnic coming  soon.

"WHY DO I HAVE BLACK SPOTS?"  One day I opened a can of my stewed tomatoes and discovered black spots on the underside of the lid. I dumped it out. Then I opened another can and discovered a bit of the same thing. While the toms had been in storage for about a year, the coincidence of getting two jars in a row with black spots didn't seem right. So of course I went searching for an answer and found that black or brown spots are perfectly natural with some foods. Here is a quote from a food science specialist regarding black spots on the lids of canned tomatoes:

Natural compounds in some foods cause a black or brown deposit on the underside of the lid. This deposit does not mean the food is unsafe to eat. However, whenever a sealed jar comes open, spoilage is likely and the product should be discarded. (Read the whole PDF)