On Freezing Tomatoes

      This year is already turning out to be a much better tomato year than last year.  Although we made and froze some tomato soup last year, we never got a single bag of tomatoes frozen.  Today is only the first of August, a week earlier than the crop came in last year, and I just froze the first batch of tomatoes.  It is so easy to freeze tomatoes, that I actually did it all by my lonesome.

First of the tomatoes for freezing, August 1st, 2012

      Start by choosing and washing the tomatoes you want to freeze.  We will use these later for cooking, so choose tomatoes that you would use for current cooking purposes.  That means you can use some that might not be quite as ripe as you would choose for slicing to be eaten fresh.  Do not use bruised or blemished fruits.  Now comes the toughest part:

      Cut out the little core of the tomato to add to the compost bin.  Do not worry about skinning the tomatoes, just start putting them in a freezer bag, cored side up to avoid drainage.

      I had just enough tomatoes on hand to fill the bag.  But the beauty of this method is that you can freeze just a couple at a time, and keep adding them over days till the bag is full.  Stick them in the freezer, again cored side up.  They will freeze solid like little billiard balls that can be broken apart quite easily.  To use them, pull out the number of frozen tomatoes you need, rinse them under running water for just a couple of moments, and the skins pop right off.  Then into your cooking pot they go.
      Most of the tomatoes that were frozen this morning are the Glacier tomatoes, a very early tomato.  They were the first of our tomatoes to come in, and they are still going strong.  They are very tasty for an early tomato, so I will certainly use them again next year.

Glacier Tomatoes, August 1st, 2012