Frozen Tomato Purée

Hello again, recipe fans!

Meave and I struggle to find time to preserve some of our wonderful farm produce so that we can enjoy a bit of it during our wintertime fast from freshness. I like to pressure can some tomato sauce each year, and when we manage to pressure can, it’s reassuring to know that I can store the results at room temperature for at least 12 months. Trouble with that method, though, is that it always becomes an all-day undertaking. By the time you’ve chopped and simmered and packed and processed, it’s dark outside and your kitchen is a shambles of splattered tomato juice and dirty canning equipment. Don’t get me wrong: I love it. But I’m also very interested in easier preservation methods.

This “recipe” offers a quick, small-batch way to store tomato purée in your freezer. The purée is of much thinner consistency than a finished pasta sauce or pizza sauce, but it’s a great base for winter soups or sauces.

Without further ado…

Ingredients

  • tomatoes, any amount really
  • freezer bags
  • a blender

  • Preparation

    1) Wash your tomatoes. I often do this by floating them in the sink, like so.

    Floating Tomatoes


    2) Core your tomatoes — trimming out any undesirable bits — and toss them in your blender.


    3) Blend! Yes, seeds and all. You’ll want the pusher/plunger that comes with your blender to force the tomatoes down into the blades.


    4) Pour the purée into a freezer bag. We found that 8 cups of purée in the blender was a good amount to pour into a 1-gallon freezer bag. Do your best to remove all the extra air from the bag, and seal it up. Then, double-bag it by putting the first sealed freezer bag into a second bag. Label the outer bag.


    5) Put the double-bagged purée into your freezer. If you lay the bags flat, they stack nicely. Once they’re frozen, you can move them around to rearrange your freezer as necessary. Voilà! You’ve got a tomato-tastic reminder of the summer sun, waiting to whisk your winter blues away!

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