Old Mother Ashby wrote:
> zxcvbob wrote:
>
>> Peter Aitken wrote:
>>
>>> > wrote in message
>>> ups.com...
>>>
>>>> I've got a great market near my house that has great discount prices on
>>>> produce.
>>>>
>>>> This week they have heirloom tomatoes for about 79 cents a pound.
>>>>
>>>> I want to buy a whole bunch for use in tomato sauce. If I cut them up
>>>> and put them into a plastic container, will they freeze and defrost
>>>> well?
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Probably not. They need to be boiled, if only briefly, to destroy
>>> enzymes that will degreade them.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> Not really true with tomatoes. They are usually scalded in order to
>> loosen the skins for peeling before freezing them, but they are not
>> cooked long enough to blanch them.
>>
>> Some people just freeze them whole and peel them as they thaw them.
>> That's what I would do for freezing a few of tomatoes.
>>
>> I wouldn't pay 79¢ per pound for tomatoes to freeze for cooking
>> though; commercial canned tomatoes are better for cooking IMHO.
>>
>> Buy a bunch of the tomatoes and eat BLT sandwiches, tomato and
>> mayonnaise sandwiches, fresh salads with tomatoes, etc. Buy canned
>> tomatoes for cooking.
>>
>> Bob
>
>
> I never scald mine, but I don't peel them either, I put the sauce or
> soup through a food mill.
>
> Canned tomatoes are indeed good for cooking, better than fresh for most
> recipes, but has nobody ever *given* you a load of tomatoes? It's not
> unusual at this time of year, I'm not going to knock them back if I can
> freeze them for later.
>
> Christine

That's not the case here.

I have frozen and canned many hundreds of pounds of tomatoes (not at one
time <g>.) OP was talking about buying "heirloom" tomatoes at 79¢ per
pound and freezing them for cooking with later. That's over $40 per
bushel. Not knowing what variety they are (Brandywine?), I still think
she'd be better off buying 5 or 10 pounds of 'em and pigging out on
fresh tomatoes for a week.

Even though I freeze tomatoes, they are not as good as canned. And
home-canned are not as good as commercially canned. (Home canned salsa
is a different matter.) It would be a waste of good tomatoes unless she
gets them for free, or close to it.

Bob