Freezing Our Garden Tomatoes

Last week Billy (aka: LW [Little Wiliam]) got to spend the night at Nana's house which left Hubs and I childless for a whole night! Oh the possibilities. We relived our first date - sushi and ice cream. Feeling extra romantic, naturally we spent the rest of the evening....FREEZING OUR TOMATOES.

Haha. Gotcha. You thought I was going to be inappropriate.

In all seriousness, our garden has EXPLODED with veggies this year - it's been amazing! I knew we wouldn't be able to eat all of the tomatoes before they spoiled but didn't want to put the effort into canning this year so I opted to freeze them. Here's how I did it:

Start by boiling a big@ss pot of water - I used my "Super Pot" aka slow cooker. It boils water pretty quickly.

Then, I scored the bottom of all of the tomatoes with an X and dropped them into the boiling water for 10-15 seconds.

From there, they immediately went into the ice bath and were strained.

 Bill then peeled and cored all tomatoes and handed them back to me.

I chopped them up and weighed them all – each freezer bag was filled with 28oz of tomatoes. The perfect amount for a batch of chili :)

 

Then ta-da! They were done and ready for the freezer in about 20 minutes.

My mistake was freezing them wherever they fit in the freezer. I wish I had thought to lay them flat on a half sheet pan first to freeze them flat – it would have made storing them much easier. Now they're all awkwardly shaped and will be difficult to store. Luckily, chili season is nearly upon us!

How do you make the most of your garden veggies?