How to Process Tomatoes When You Aren't Ready to Use Them Yet

Okay, so you know how your garden tomatoes don't make it all convenient for you, and they turn red at different times? Or you have some that are RIPE, and some that are orange-ish and some that aren't QUITE ready and some sitting in the window sill and some sitting in the fridge? Eventually they get gross in the fridge. And when you have the time to make sauce or whatever THEY are not ready. Dang tomatoes. Also, who wants to make sauce and can stuff in the summertime when you can do it in the winter?

You can solve all this by just buying tomatoes at the farmer's market or you can do what my mother-in-law taught me to do! Check this out! By the way, it could not be any easier. If a Kitchen Moron like me can do it, anyone can!

Start with your gorgeous ripe tomatoes. I estimate that about 20-ish tomatoes might fill a gallon baggie.

Fill up a pot of water and get it boiling. Then put in about 8 tomatoes, depending on size. Watch them until they start to split. Then put them in your sink full of cold water.

Here is their home after they split. Don't feel sorry for them; they are fine. This is a sink full of cold water. If you have an icemaker, use it to fill up the sink with ice AND water. It shocks them and makes them easy to peel.

Peel them and put the peel in a bowl or something where you will also put all the innards. Core the tomatoes and don't be afraid to cut out green or yellow stuff and any bad parts. Quarter them and toss them into a baggie. Aron likes juice and seeds with his because he just processes them further later but you might want to take that gunk out depending on what you want to do with the tomatoes. (Update 2014 now I core them FIRST before putting them in the hot water)

Voila! The tomatoes you saw on the counter made these 2 gallon bags of tomatoes, ready to turn into tasty spaghetti sauce whenever you take them out of the freezer and have the time to do so.

Please leave me a comment if I've forgotten a step or something! Have fun and share this with your friends!

*Originally posted August 4, 2012 but I'm sending some beautiful tomatoes off to see Aunt Blanche today so thought I'd give this post some love.