Holy Tomatoes Batman
Shout out to our new farm hands, friends Bridget and Colin , who joined our own little seasoned pickers in the field. Without those extra built-low-to-the ground pickers, I don’t know if I would be spending all my waking hours up to my elbows in tomato juice. Thanks, guys.
Ok, so let’s say these extra farm hands result in a lot of tomatoes. I mean, A LOT of tomatoes. I’m talking about 40 pounds of big red beauties. And with their looming threat of transforming from a delicate treat into mashed rottenness, these tomatoes demand attention.
There are some seriously scary stories out there about the horrors that result from amateur canning. I’m not opposed to learning how to manage boiling hot glassware; in fact, reader Amy has it spelled out nicely at her site Five Flower Mom, and I’m going to give it a go with the next batch, I swear. I just know I’ll be more open to that lesson once the frozen veggies start infringing on my ice cream space. I’m the type who needs plenty of room for ice cream.
For now, since Ben and Jerry have some wiggle room, I was happy to stumble upon this site, http://www.pickyourown.org/freezingtomatoes.htm, that walked me through the easy process of freezing. I froze tons as diced tomatoes and the others I put up as sauce.
Here’s a quick break-down of the easy steps:
(1) Drop tomatoes into a pot of boiling water. Leave them for about 45 -60 seconds.
(2) Drop them into an icy bath. I filled the sink with ice cubes and cold water.
Looked like a mooshier version of bobbing for apples. 
(3) Pull off the skin.
(4) Once the skin came off, I cut the stem end. Then I took the whole thing in my hand and squeezed. A nice tight hug, to get out the extra water and some of the seeds.
(5) Dice the tomatoes and set the pieces in a colander in the sink to drain.
For diced tomatoes, I put them in ziploc baggies, squeezed out as much air as possible, and laid them flat in the freezer.
For sauce, I followed my dash-o-this, pinch-o-that style tomato sauce recipe, then froze the sauce in jelly jars (lucky for me we polished off the strawberry jam so quickly!)
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. And enjoy.
5 Replies to “Holy Tomatoes Batman”
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Be careful with those frozen jelly jars. We used to do quite a bit of canning – jams, preserves, applesauce, veggies, stewed tomatoes and tomato sauce. It’s a much safer way of keeping everything fresh. When you freeze things in glass you have to be careful with the amount of air you leave in the jar. Not enough space and the jar will crack because when the sauce, etc. freezes it will expand. We learned that the hard way when trying to make our own pickles. Yikes – what a mess!!
Another little note for you – even thought you’ve squozen (is that really a word???) a lot of the liquid out of the tomatoes – somehow the stuff seems to come from everywhere when you defrost the little suckers. Defrost them in a colander to let that excess stuff get lost.
you are a very brave woman. let me sum up what i know about canning tomatoes. ok that’s it. good luck.
am i wrong or did you not like tomatoes in college?
wow! I am super impressed. Wait. Aren’t we sisters? I definitely did not grow up knowing this stuff!
I could not do it (even if I knew how) – tomatoes are just too squishy for me. I am very impressed!! Great post. 🙂
Years and years ago I canned peaches–when my husband was in the Army and we were in South Carolina. The canning was done in the basement of the local school–and we put the stuff into regular cans and the cans were cooked in a huge pot, bigger than the ones used in restaurants, A man in charge put them in and lifted them out.. There were rows of counters with faucets and running water, so we could wash the fruit, and we got instructions and help from the other women–and men–who did this regularly–and canned everything, usually from their own farms, even chickens. Of course, I never canned anything again but this was an experience for a young (Yes, I was young once!) Jewish girl from New York. Wow–didn’t plan to write so much. Ruth