Tomato Love!

I have a thing for tomatoes. It goes all the way back to childhood and living for summer and fresh tomatoes slipped inside of biscuits. This was my dessert on those warm evenings spent catching 'lightning' bugs. (We don't call them fireflies around here.) Before the lightening bug chase and tag and mother may I and whatever else we played at dusk, there were tomato biscuits. I still eat them every chance I get. The thing for tomatoes eventually led me to my favorite cuisine, Italian. I think I may have a little Italian in me somewhere because I could eat some form of it daily. So the fact that I'm an Italo-phile makes me pretty picky when it comes to the tomatoes I use. Which is why I've been freezing tomatoes on and off for a few weeks. The fact that these were free and sweet made it definitely worth the trouble of stashing them away for winter. I'm dreaming of chicken Parmesan, cacciatore, pizza, spaghetti and on and on. Now if only JD shared my love for Italian... 

Here are some tips in case you run upon some free and sweet tomatoes!

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and wash the tomatoes. Place them in a large bowl, pour the boiling water over them and let them sit until you see the skins starting to split.

Simply peel the skins from the tomatoes and discard. 

They slip off pretty easily.

If the tomatoes have a firm core, cut away from it and quarter the good parts.

This would be the core I spoke of.

This would be the good parts I spoke of :)

Once you've separated the good from the bad you're ready to ladle them into freezer bags. 

This would be the freezer bag. Just kidding. I also can tomatoes which is fairly easy. The reason I chose to freeze these is that I had more freezer space than I did pantry space. 

If you don't have time to put any away right now I'll let you in on a little secret that an Italian friend of mine taught me. Just slip whole, washed tomatoes into freezer bags and freeze. You can then remove the skins and cores when you take them out in the winter. She told me that her mother did this all the time. I have to say that I've tried it and they worked out just fine.

I've got to work on JD's attitude toward Italian cuisine...