About those frozen tomatoes...

So, back before Thanksgiving we looked around at nearly 3 dozen large, ripe tomatoes needing to be used soon. We were heading out of town and knew we could get rid of a dozen or so, but that left us with about two dozen with an unknown future. I remembered talking with my dad about freezing tomatoes and decided to give it a shot.

 I rinsed the tomatoes and literally just stacked them on the dish towel-covered freezer shelf and left them there. I have since learned that additional prep can be done, but we were literally getting ready to wait for the roads to open so we could leave, so I wasn't up for anything that took much time.

I knew I was supposed to wait until they were frozen and then put them in freezer bags, and I had good intentions of following through. However, it was really easy to convince myself that wasn't necessary since they wouldn't be there that long. So I let them set...until today. We really needed the freezer space and decided it would be awesome to have a huge pot of s'ghetti sauce simmering on the stove. But how to proceed?

 Dad had shared that the peels just slipped off when you defrost them, but I needed something a little more detailed. A quick look around the internet revealed it was just about that easy. So, I grabbed a bowlful of tomatoes (tomato-shaped rocks at this point) and headed to the sink.

 I ran the first under hot water about a half a minute then tried carefully picking at the blossom end to peel as I did the fresh tomatoes. This was slow and resulted in the peel freezing back to the tomato. This first tomato took me a while and resulted in very cold hands. The next few moved a little more quickly, but I still wasn't experiencing the "slip right off" Dad had assured me about.

 OK...one more time. Rinsed the next under hot water then just rubbed the skin...and it came right off! SWEET!

 So, now I have a bowl of frozen, peeled tomatoes thawing in the sun coming through the window. Onions are cooking away, and I am ready to dive into the next batch of sauce...after those puppies thaw a bit ;)

 

Next year I'll do things a bit differently...
  • I'll keep freezing as an option all summer long. That way I can stockpile them until I have enough to make sauce or whip up the courage to try canning them.
  • If I do that, I will definitely use freezer bags instead of continuing to use my whole freezer shelf and risking freezer burn.
  • I'll be sure to de-stem them first. For most it's easy enough to get them out, but with heirlooms, you can get funny shapes that don't like to let go.
  • One site mentioned trimming out the stem scar before freezing. I might try that, too.
Hopefully our tomato harvest will be just as strong next year so I can put these into practice.

Comments

  1. Susan ScottDecember 16, 2013 at 9:02 AM

    I made sauce with those frozen tomatoes then looked at the two-dozen small tomatoes that needed to be used up. So, I took my own hints and frozen them last night. I will bag them up when I get home so we will be ready for sauce later.

    ReplyDelete

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