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sammy_gw

Freeze tomatoes

sammy zone 7 Tulsa
11 years ago

I have Cherokee Purple, Mortgage Lifter, Celebrity, and many many cherry tomatoes (something like Sweet 100). To freeze them do I just cut out the stems, and the ugly split parts of Cherokee Purple, and put them in a bag?

Will they all taste as good when thawed?

Will the Cherry Tomatoes also be as good?

I have about 10 or 12 pots of tomatoes, and far too many for us to eat.

Thanks,

Sammy

Comments (17)

  • Okiedawn OK Zone 7
    11 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Sammy,

    I've linked the page from the National Center for Home Food Preservation that describes how to freeze tomatoes. There are different ways depending on what you want to do with them when you take them out of the freezer.

    Some of us throw whole, washed tomatoes into freezer bags and freeze them. We take them out later remove the skin and core and cook with them or can them, using them for salsa or to make spagetti sauce, tortilla soup, vegetable soup, chili or whatever. That's one way to accumulate enough tomatoes for a canning batch, or it is a way to put off having to deal with a flood of tomatoes until we have more time available.

    When frozen tomatoes are thawed, they still will taste like tomatoes. Their texture will be completely different--mushy if fully thawed. If you intend to eat them as slices on sandwiches or burgers, you might want to try slicing them, putting them on a cookie sheet or plate and putting them into the freezer long enough to freeze them, and then removing them from the cookie sheet or plat and putting them in freezer bags to store. When you thaw them out, only thaw them out about half way and eat them half-frozen so they still have some firmness when you eat them.

    When I freeze regular tomatoes, I don't intend to use them as a substitute for fresh, sliced tomatoes. It is my intent to use them in cooking in some form or fashion. When I want to freeze tomatoes to eat in salads or sandwiches, or right out of hand as snacks, I dehydrate them first and remove much of the water before freezing them. I don't dehydrate themdown to 5% moisture like I would if I was going to store them in a jar in the pantry. I usually dehydrate them down to about 20% moisture, but some people like to dehydrate themdown to only 50% moisture to freeze and thaw later for sandwiches. I've never done that before, but might try it this year since we have such a big crop and I'm getting tired of canning them.

    You also can make salsa or tomato sauce or pureed tomatoes and then freeze it in freezer boxes or freezer jars instead of canning it.

    You can purchase Mrs. Wage's tomato mixes and easily turn a few pans of tomatoes into frozen or canned pasta sauce, pizza sauce, chili base, salsa, catsup etc. One thing I like about Mrs. Wage's mixes is that they can be safely frozen for up to a year if you don't want to can them. I buy Mrs. Wage's at my local Wal-Mart and so far this year I've made catsup and chili base and am getting ready to make pizza sauce next week. We'll be enjoying our tomatoes in many forms over the next year.

    There's lots of ways to freeze tomatoes, but the finished product you get does not even come close to being the same as fresh tomatoes. With the bite-sized tomatoes, I always dehydrate them before freezing them because if you just freeze them and take them out to thaw, they're just little bags of mush when they thaw, so are good only for cooking, not fresh eating. With the dehydrated ones, I sometimes toss them dry right into salads or soups and sometimes I rehydrate them in a cup of water for a while before eating them. Because they had much of the water removed from them when I dehydrated them, they're not as mushy as frozen ones that were frozen with all their water still in them.

    How do you know it is summertime at our house? There's cookies sheets of tomatoes dehydrating in the oven and a pot of sauce bubbling away on top of the stove several days a week. I love summertime because the whole house smells like fresh tomatoes.

    Dawn

    Here is a link that might be useful: NCHFP: How To Freeze Tomatoes

  • mulberryknob
    11 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Dawn, when we get the peaches out of the dehydrator, we plan to put in some cherry tomatoes. We once dried blueberries whole and it took a LONG time. So I'm wondering, do you cut them in half first, because I'm thinking I'll do ours that way.

  • Okiedawn OK Zone 7
    11 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Dorothy,

    Yes, I cut the cherry tomatoes in half. With some of the really big ones, I even cut them into quarters....that would be the biggest Black Cherry and all the Mountain Magic ones, and sometimes the Yellow Pear and Ildi ones. They dry faster with the cut side up, of course.


    Dawn

  • mulberryknob
    11 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    That was my plan. Thanks.

  • biradarcm
    11 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Which is best way to dry tomatoes and other vegetables among Food Dryers, Oven and under natural sunlight? How to determine the percent moisture?

  • Okiedawn OK Zone 7
    11 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Dorothy, I figured it was your plan, but mentioned cut side up for anyone reading along who might be new at dehydrating food. : )

    Chandra, I've always used a dehydrator of one type of another. Right now, my convection oven has a 'dehydrate' mode so that is how I dehydrate them. Before we bought this stove, I used a countertop dehydrator. Usually our humidity is too high here to dry them outdoors. They'll dry on the outside but often be moldy on the inside.

    I have no idea of the best way to determine the moisture level. I just know that in order for them to be dry enough to store unrefrigerated, you have to dry them until they are about 5% moisture. At moisture that low, they are very brittle and snap or break in half. If you can bend them without them snapping in half, they are not dry enough yet for unrefrigerated storage. I usually dry mine down to 15-20% moisture (that's a guess or estimate, as I don't measure the moisture) and store them in freezer zip-lock bags in the deep freeze.

    Dawn

  • sammy zone 7 Tulsa
    Original Author
    11 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Do you mean that you would take a large tomato, quarter it, put it in the oven to dehydrate it to about 5% moisture, then put it in freezer bags and freeze it?

    I will look for the book. I think I am missing something here.

    Thanks for your detailed explanations. I just must have some kind of a brain block.

    Sammy

  • soonergrandmom
    11 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Sammy I believe that they are talking about cutting cherry tomatoes in half to dehydrate, but some cherries are larger, like Black Cherry which you might cut into quarters.

    You can wash, then freeze a whole tomato, but it will not be the texture of a fresh tomato when it thaws, but the taste will be the same, so you could use it to cook with.

    If you want to cook the tomatoes and make sauce first, then freeze, it would be no different than making sauce from fresh tomatoes. If you are making sauce, you will have to cook it down at some point, either before it goes into the freezer or after they thaw. Your choice.

    I have never tried to dehydrate a large tomato, but I would think you would need to evenly slice those or your drying time would be close to never.

    After I have eaten all of the tomatoes that I want to eat fresh, I normally make salsa. The salsa canning recipes contain enough acid that they only require a water bath process.

    If you are only going to freeze sauce, then you can pretty well make it anyway you choose.

  • Okiedawn OK Zone 7
    11 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Sammy, Carol knows me well enough that she knew just what I meant. I was talking about drying bite-sized tomatoes, which in my case involves currant, cherry, pear, grape and mini-plum types. I usually cut them in half, but cut the biggest ones, like Black Cherry, Yellow Submarine and Mountain Magic, into quarters.

    For large tomatoes, you can cut them into slices so they'll dry evenly, or into approximate 1" squares.

    This week I am going to try using Brokenbar's recipe for drying tomatoes after marinating them in wine. Now that I've said that, I have to go find the recipe and link it.

    Dawn

    Here is a link that might be useful: Recipe: Sun-Dried Tomatoes Marinated in Wine

  • MiaOKC
    11 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I've been scouring the Harvest forum and finding recipes I think I will like and Brokenbar's was one of them. Do you all know, since I don't have a dehydrator and don't have a dehydration mode on my oven, can I use the lowest temp setting on my oven and keep it going for hours to dehydrate these? I've seen other recipes that do it that way, so I was thinking I could Frankenstein the methods together to work with what I have. Will likely freeze my results rather than oil pack, but might try a little of each way.

  • Okiedawn OK Zone 7
    11 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Mia, Yes you can. Set the oven on the lowest setting. Ideally, you would be able to dry tomatoes between 140-160 degrees, but your oven may not staye.that low. Some ovens want to heat up to 200 for starters, or the temperature indicator won't show anything if the stove is below 200 degrees. You can buy an oven thermometer and set it inside the stove to monitor the temperature. Depending on the size of the tomatoes you're driving, it can take 10 to 12 hours or even 18 to 20 hours.

    I'll link a page from Pick-Your-Own that contains info on drying tomatoes using your oven, or your car(!).

    Dawn

    Here is a link that might be useful: Making Sun-Dried Tomatoes

  • MiaOKC
    11 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Thanks, Dawn. Right now, that car thing is looking doable! I will check on the oven settings I can use. We have a double oven, so I have lots of space, so that is something for which I'm grateful!

    In semi-related news, I visited Wally World on my lunch break to procure my first canning supplies (BWB for Annie's Salsa). I'd planned to try and lose my canning virginity tonight, but had a setback when the BWB pot said not to use on a glass cooktop. Ruh-roh, Shaggy. I purchased it anyway, but googling like mad now to see what my options are. The internet is rife with this problem, so hopefully something turns up.

    If I make up a batch of Annie's Salsa, and don't have a way to can it just yet, can I store it in the fridge a few days while I pursue an alternative? I did purchase the Kerr mason jars that are safe for the freezer, but doubt you can use them in there unless you actually can them in the pot first. I did buy the canning book, too, but couldn't find info on the glass top during frantic speed read in the aisle.

  • Okiedawn OK Zone 7
    11 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Mia, I have canned with a BWB pot on my glass cook top ever since we bought that stove, which was either 3 or 4 years ago. I haven't had any problem. Plenty of people do can on their glass cooktop. You can read a million back threads at the Harvest Forum where this topic has been discussed.

    I'd like to suggest you check your Owner's Manual for your cooktop. Mine clearly states that canning on the stove can void the warranty. I read that and thought long and hard about canning on the stove, but decided to do it anyway. I am not sure I'd do it with a heavier pressure canner, but I know lots of people who do. If your glass cooktop is still under warranty, and your owner's manual says that using a canner on it will void the warranty, there are other options. I imagine they are discussed in the document I'm going to link.

    Most BWB canners have bottoms with indentations so that they are not perfectly flat. This could be a problem if it interferes with the pan heating evenly and maintaining even heat for the duration of the timed canning period. I didn't find it to be a problem with my stove, but I have recently upgraded from my old BWB graniteware canner to the Ball Elite 21-quart stainless steel BWB canner and one reason why was because it has a flat bottom. I just always listened to the water boiling when jars were in the BWB canner because one potential with glass top stoves is that they self-regular their temperatue so the heat cycles on and off at times. That would be a problem if the canner water cooled down and stopped boiling, but I never had that happen when I was BWB canning.

    No, you cannot store the salsa for several days in the fridge because while it is stored, bacteria could be forming in it. Then, you'd have to boil it again, which is essentially cooking it twice, and that can make canned foods taste overcooked. If you want, you can make your salsa and freeze it, and you do not have to can it in the jars before your freeze it. Sometimes I freeze stuff in freezer jars (made by Ball, sold on the canning aisle, and are plastic), or in freezer boxes (also often sold on canning aisle, though usually sold out right now) made by Arrow (I have some with red lids and some with blue lids) or in freezer bags. The plastic freezer boxes made by Arrow have been sold out at our local Wal-Mart for a couple of months, but I found them on the canning aisle at our local Tractor Supply Store on Monday. The Ball Freezer jars, made of plastic, are on the canning aisle most of the time, but sometimes sell out on weekends, though they usually are back on the store shelves within a couple of days. Right now I have all 3 of those kinds of containers in my freezer with various kinds of produce in them. You can freeze in jars, then when you take the glass jar out, let the contents thaw, and keep it in the refrigerator, which is the same thing you'd do with salsa you'd canned instead of freezing. Or, you can do all your prep work with chopping the tomatoes and other fresh ingredients, etc., and freeze them in freezer boxes or freezer bags and then just take them out, thaw them, and mix them together with the other canned ingredients and spices when you're ready to make the salsa. OR, put your tomatoes in freezer bags and freeze them until you're ready to make salsa. Then, thaw them and use them when you're ready to make salsa. Right now I have 36 lbs. of tomatoes in my freezer waiting to be used for canning something. I put them in there one day earlier this week when I had too many tomatoes and too little available time to deal with them.

    I'm going to link some info on canning with glass top stoves or glass cooktops. When I went and found it, I noticed the folks who have that website have updated it for 2012, and also that there's an ad there for a canner just like mine. I put off buying the Ball Elite canner for so long, even though I wanted one, because it is so pricey. However, I've been using it about a month and I love, love, love it. I wish I'd bought it the first year it came out. Hindsight is 20-20.

    Now, I need to head back to the kitchen, where I'm making pizza sauce, tomato sauce and pickles. I'll check back here later to see if you have other questions.

    Hope this helps,

    Dawn

    Here is a link that might be useful: Glasstop Stoves & Canning

  • MiaOKC
    11 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Dawn... you are my hero. Heroine. Whatever. You are it!

    Let's pretend I hadn't spent all afternoon surfing the Harvest forum and getting sidetracked on all the interesting threads there.

    I've read the link and will investigate my stove when I get home. I think I'll concentrate on my dehydrating project for now, and will freeze any tomatoes awaiting canning.

    Many thanks.

  • MiaOKC
    11 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Great news, my Whirlpool Gold ceramic glass cooktop is canning-safe per the owner's manual! I even called Whirlpool, and the nice customer service guy looked up the diameter of my largest burner so I can work out pot sizing. Not sure if the Granite Ware $20 BWB ridged bottom canner I bought yesterday will fit, need to measure tonight. I'm more OK with chancing it with a ridged bottom (which is a no-no per the owner's manual) but having an overhang of more than one inch on either side of the burner would be a bigger red flag for me - it could conduct too much heat to parts of the glass, I think, which is one of the causes of people cracking their stove. So I may be in the market for the canner you mentioned, Dawn, as it looks great. Trying to source it locally now, I see it on Amazon for $80 new but don't want to wait... I'm anxious to try canning this weekend!

    My other thought is Walmart had a pressure canner for $45 that said it could be used as a BWB canner, too, which seemed like a cool multi-purpose thing to have. Will investigate more soon. Thanks again, this is why I love this group!

  • Okiedawn OK Zone 7
    11 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Mia, If only you could see the kitchen and I at the end of the day....the end of any day in canning season. We are tired, dirty, hot, sticky, steamy and worn out. However, it is a small price to pay in order to have organic, freshly-preserved food all year long that was raised in our own garden.

    The next time I buy kitchen towels, I'm going to find some that are tomato red in color because that's the color they are at the end of every day. The last thing I do after cleaning up the kitchen at night is put the towels in the washing machine and turn it on. Then in the morning, I get up and throw them in the dryer so that by the time I come in from harvesting the produce, I have clean dry towels again. You wouldn't think I could run throw a whole pile of kitchen towels in one day, but I do.

    That's great news about your ceramic glass cooktop. What a relief! I do think the manufacturers are trying to be more user friendly now that the ceramic cooktops have been out for 3 or 4 decades and they've gotten some feedback from users. My graniteware BWB, which I bought at Wal-Mart maybe 10 years ago, fit my largest burner just fine. It might have been a little larger than the big burner, but not much. At times, I also used stainless steel stockpots as canners, because I have a set of 4 of them in varying sizes, and the two smallest sizes fit two of my burners perfectly. To use a stockpot as a canner, you can simply put a folded dish towel in the bottom of the pot before you fill it with water. That puts a layer between the jar and the hot metal.

    You'll never regret buying the Ball Elite canner if that is what you decide to do. I just love it. It is beautiful, it works very well, and with the glass top on it, you can see how well the water is boiling without having to lift the lid and take a peek. The handles are covered in silicone so you can lift it without potholders, which I really like a lot. It has a triple-clad bottom that is really heavy and which must disperse heat wonderfully because a full canner loaded with full jars will stay at a full boil at '2' or '3' on the burner's dial, which is a lot lower than my graniteware kettle needed. I had to learn to keep turning it down, down, down when I first started using this canner. I bought it on Amazon because they were sold out in the stores that usually have them here. Last year I saw it at Tractor Supply and at Lowe's but haven't seen it at either of them this year.

    Check the size of the Wal-Mart pressure canner and see how many jars it holds. There's a small one that only would let you can in small batches, which is fine if you're only wanting to make really small batches, but I like being able to can bigger batches. And, not to insult your intelligence, but we American women don't have a lot of experience with pressure cooking and canning any more, so I'll throw this piece of info out there for you and me and everyone else: be sure that if you are buying a pressure canner, you buy a pressure canner and not a pressure cooker. They are not the same thing.

    I was talking to some friends at a grassfire last week and one of them mentioned that he and his wife had been canning produce from their garden for four days and had about four more days to go. Lucky them! I have been canning for about 4 weeks now, and figure I have at least four more weeks to go in order to get all the tomatoes and peppers canned. I cannot imagine doing it all in 8 days like they are. Of course, I have a pretty big garden and I plant too many tomatoes and probably too many peppers.

    One thing about canning is that it is addictive. No matter how much food I get put up in jars, even when I run out of garden produce, I think of things to buy and can. Like cherries, for example. Home-canned maraschino cherries are so easy to can and so yummy, and they do not contain artificial red food coloring, so they are the color God intended for cherries to be.

    Usually, after I make Apple Pie Jam in the fall when the fresh crop of apples are hitting the store shelves, I do finally declare canning season to be officially over, at least until the cranberries arrive in the stores.

    Dawn

  • soonergrandmom
    11 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Mia, the canner will probably be heavier than the WB so remember that. The bottom part of mine is not very tall so only holds small jars. I find it so much easier to WB than can, that I try to WB as much as possible. So far this year that is all I have used, but if I have another heavy time with green beans, I may go dig it out. So far, I have just frozen the beans, 17 packages so far.

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