If my Roma's don't come fast enough

johnyhamm · Fri Jul 22, 2011 7:54 pm

Hi,
I'm planning to can my roma's this year. I have a quite a few but it seems they are ripening at different speeds.

So I only have to do one big canning session is it okay to freeze the romas as they come off the vine so I have them all when I'm ready to can?

Thanks for your help

TZ -OH6 · Fri Jul 22, 2011 9:00 pm

Freezing is fine. I keep a few frozen tomatoes in the freezer all year. If you are going to use them pretty quickly it is easier to cut off hard tops green shoulders etc before freezing because it is hard to do afterwards but the skins come off soon after they start to thaw.

SOB · Fri Jul 22, 2011 10:12 pm

TZ, maybe it's just me but I'm a little confused by your response. Are you saying to freeze whole then cut the top off or cur the tops off then freeze? Sorry if this is a dub question but the "hard tops green shoulders" part is confusing me.

I have trouble with a sporadic start to the Roma season and tend to let a few rot because I don't have enough to make sauce from. I'm wondering if I should put my first ones in the freezer until more are ready...

TZ -OH6 · Sat Jul 23, 2011 7:36 am

Sorry to be unclear. When you scald tomatoes to remove the skins often times the shoulders will give you some trouble because they are not as ripe as the rest of the fruit. The core also needs to be removed at some point. With a frozen tomato the ripe skin slips off easily when it starts to thaw, as if it were scalded, but the sticky skin and core are difficult to deal with on a frozen tomato (or mushy thawed tomato) so I find it easier if you remove the troublesome parts before freezing.

gixxerific · Sat Jul 23, 2011 9:31 am

I am going to piggyback on this thread but I think it fits well enough.

I froze some tomatoes last year like TZ was suggesting by cutting off the unusable portions. SO just how long can they be kept in a freezer and still be a viable product to work with? On another not I heard that by freezing them the ice crystals that from tear up the tissue is this really a problem?

Good luck Johnny

TZ -OH6 · Sat Jul 23, 2011 10:45 am

I don't know how long they will last. They will probably get freezer burn on the cut parts etc., but they should probably make it a full year in edible form.

Yes, the ice crystals tear them up so they thaw out mushy and drippy, but they are fine for cooking. The ones I keep as whole fruit have a tangy flavor that I can add to normal sauce to give it a citrusy edge. I usually only grow one plant of that type so I freeze the fruit as they ripen.

The first year I had my new dedicated freezer I filled some ziplocks with quartered fresh tomatoes and froze them rather than stewing them first, what a mess trying to pick skins off of the mess as it thawed out. I started cooking them after that.

gixxerific · Sun Jul 24, 2011 8:12 am

TZ by cooking do you mean blanching than freezing? or what exactly.

TZ -OH6 · Sun Jul 24, 2011 9:55 am

Cooking=making plain unseasoned sauce. I scald off the skins, stick them in a big pot, puree them with a submersible hand blender and cook down to about half the volume I started with using a big 12" pan. About 4 cups? per gallon ziplock (bag half full) makes a batch of sauce good for a box of pasta or 3 lb of ground meat for chili. My freezer has stacks of bags laid flat to freeze. They thaw out very quickly that way.

I really don't know about blanching tomatoes.