Does anyone randomly drop off produce at your door? No? Just me? Lately I have found myself the lucky recipient of more tomatoes than my single-self can handle. So what does the church worker gal do? She asks her local congregants for ideas!
After talking through the process of canning, realistically looking at what can be immediately consumed, the next best option seemed to be freezing the tomatoes. Using quality freezer-safe tupperware and the flash-boiling process, freezing is a breeze for most produce, including tomatoes!
By flash-boiling and pre-peeling tomatoes, there is less work to do at the thawing stage. Never having flash boiled tomatoes, I had no idea what to expect, but it was so simple, once I got the hang of it!
I use my flash-peeled frozen tomatoes to make soups and sauces using the stovetop or crockpot. Some of you might have kitchen gadgets that can help as well ( such as my new pre-birthday present, a Pampered Chef Deluxe Cooking Blender)!
Flash-boiling and pre-peeling does take some time, but not as much as canning does! Plus- you get the benefit of making your sauces taste the way YOU want, controlling ingredients over mass-produced store bought goods. Granted, the shelf life is a tad bit smaller, so I often make smaller batches, but I love making pizza sauce, tomato based pasta sauce, and my own tomato soup!
Tips
1) Use proper heat resistant tongs to transfer your tomatoes in and out of the boiling water!
2) Prepare a large bowl with ice-cold water and set it as close to your stove-top as you can.
3) Heat water on your stove-top to a boiling temp.
4) Cut a small x in the bottom of your tomato. This helps the peeling process go faster.
5) Place a few tomatoes in your pot (depends on how large you go). I only do about 3 or 4 at a time.
6) Once your the area of the "x" starts to peel, your tomato can be removed from the water. You will see the skin begin to separate from the tomato. Immediately place into the bath of cold ice water.
7) After waiting a couple of minutes, you can fish out your tomato and peel it. Using a cutting board with ridges to keep liquid in, I peel and cut the tomato, placing it directly into a freezer safe container.
8) Keep a second bowl with a plastic bag beside the cutting board for peels, unless you compost or have other methods of disposing peels. Apartment life doesn't allow for that, so off to the bin it goes.
9) To minimize tomato juice mess, rinse your cutting board after every 5-6 tomatoes. This helps keep floor and counters cleaner, with less mess at the end!
10) Wait until your containers full of tomatoes have cooled before freezing!
11) Keep some old towels handy in case water boils over or is spilled on the floor.
I love tomatoes! I wish someone would drop some off here! LOL Helpful post!
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