Not whole tomatoes left, but I still have enough sauce to last until about probably May.
CReisch21
3 freezers full….
anabanana100
Yup. I freeze all of my extras whole and use them for sauce, soups, stews and roasting throughout the year. Except for ketchup, I purchased 0 grocery store tomato products past couple of years. This year I’m planning to grow a “storage” variety that supposedly keeps fresh for an extended period of time (Long Keeper).
CReisch21
I chop them up and freeze them. Then I put them in my freeze dryer that removes all the water from them. I then powder them in my Vita Mixer and can the powder with an oxygen absorber and vacuum seal them. The powder can be rehydrated into paste, sauce, or even tomato juice with a lot of water. They lose nothing but the water this way. I powder skins, seeds, and the meat. Keeps all the nutrients and flavor intact. Making sauce this way is so much easier than trying to simmer down the tomatoes until it thickens, then make a spaghetti sauce or whatever and then can that in a pressure cooker. It sometimes took 8-12 hours on low to simmer down tomatoes I pureed. Plus, after canning sometimes I feel like they didn’t seal right and I was nervous eating the sauce, especially when it had meat in it. I haven’t gotten sick so, must’ve been OK. I have an XL commercial Harvest Right Freeze Dryer so I can do a lot at 1x, but it has to rum for a couple days when loaded with tomatoes. Still beats simmering the water out since I can start it and let it go. Simmering I have the stove on all day and can’t just leave it. If I turn it up in temp to go quicker I have had the bottom burn and have to throw away the whole HUGE pot. Adding water to powder is so much easier. Oh, I also sort and powder the tomatoes by color! This way I can have jars of white, yellow, pink, red, and purple tomato powders. If you are making an Alfredo sauce, you can really liven up the flavor with white tomato powder without changing the color!
4 Comments
Not whole tomatoes left, but I still have enough sauce to last until about probably May.
3 freezers full….
Yup. I freeze all of my extras whole and use them for sauce, soups, stews and roasting throughout the year. Except for ketchup, I purchased 0 grocery store tomato products past couple of years. This year I’m planning to grow a “storage” variety that supposedly keeps fresh for an extended period of time (Long Keeper).
I chop them up and freeze them. Then I put them in my freeze dryer that removes all the water from them. I then powder them in my Vita Mixer and can the powder with an oxygen absorber and vacuum seal them. The powder can be rehydrated into paste, sauce, or even tomato juice with a lot of water. They lose nothing but the water this way. I powder skins, seeds, and the meat. Keeps all the nutrients and flavor intact. Making sauce this way is so much easier than trying to simmer down the tomatoes until it thickens, then make a spaghetti sauce or whatever and then can that in a pressure cooker. It sometimes took 8-12 hours on low to simmer down tomatoes I pureed. Plus, after canning sometimes I feel like they didn’t seal right and I was nervous eating the sauce, especially when it had meat in it. I haven’t gotten sick so, must’ve been OK. I have an XL commercial Harvest Right Freeze Dryer so I can do a lot at 1x, but it has to rum for a couple days when loaded with tomatoes. Still beats simmering the water out since I can start it and let it go. Simmering I have the stove on all day and can’t just leave it. If I turn it up in temp to go quicker I have had the bottom burn and have to throw away the whole HUGE pot. Adding water to powder is so much easier. Oh, I also sort and powder the tomatoes by color! This way I can have jars of white, yellow, pink, red, and purple tomato powders. If you are making an Alfredo sauce, you can really liven up the flavor with white tomato powder without changing the color!