How To Freeze Leftover Tomatoes

Well, Hi there!! Are you enjoying fall? The temps have really dropped here. My garden is coming to an end very soon.

The tomatoes this year were awesome! My garden EXPLODED! 

Seriously, I've been giving tomatoes away at church, at the bus stop, neighbors. It's been such a blessing to share, but I still have so many leftovers...

I just had a thought... Isn't God's grace and mercy just like that? He gives me so much grace and mercy. I pray that I share His exploding love filled with grace and mercy to everyone. He is so faithful!

Just a little rabbit trail....anyway...

I'm going to show you what I'm doing with all of those leftover tomatoes. It's so easy, you won't believe it!

Uh... Freeze them!

I'm going to add them to soups, chili, sauces. Hey, I might even try a winter salsa with them, just to see if it would work.

First, get your freezer bags out and label them with the date and what they are.

You have two options... Blanch them or not.

I chose to blanch them, I didn't want the skins on them. 

The next batch I probably won't.

So, blanching is SUPER easy. Drop each tomato into boiling water until you see the skin crack. Done. Take them out. Then I dropped them into a sink of cold water.

Next, you just slip the skins off and freeze.

You can freeze them whole with or without skins. You can cut them up and freeze them. You can crush them and freeze them.

So many options and so easy to do!

I did cut-up tomatoes and crushed tomatoes.

Crushing them was actually fun. If you have kids they would LOVE this!

I cut them in half put them in my freezer bag, stuck my clean hand in there and squish, squish, squish! :)

Now, if kiddos were doing this, you might want to give them a big bowl, then pour the tomatoes into a freezer bag.

Voilé!!

I told you it was easy! I like to freeze my items flat, they take up less room in the freezer.

I hope you had an abundant garden this year!

Now, you know...

Blessings!