I just ran across this on youtube, so I have not done this, but it looks good although time consuming. This is for when you are saying to yourself "what am I gonna do with all these d$@n tomatoes".
Large Big Green Egg, Weber Performer Deluxe, Weber Smokey Joe Silver, Fireboard Drive, 3 DigiQs, lots of Thermapens, and too much other stuff to mention.
I do like her melon-baller idea. Although, I've never tried to freeze tomato paste. I hate that I waste so much of it, or at least used to; I switched to the more expensive tubes a while back.
I make tomato paste, although the texture of the paste I make is a bit softer than store bought. But a bit more cooking would make a paste comparable in thickness to store bought.
I freeze dollops on a cookie sheet with a soup spoon or scoop or I freeze the paste in ice cube trays (ones I only use for food, not for actual ice). I put 8 or 10 frozen dollops in a resealable vacuum bag, lightly vacuum out the air, and store in the freezer.
I like making my own paste because it tastes like actual tomatoes.
You can freeze dollops of store bought paste in exactly the same way. Very handy and eliminates worries about food safety.
To Mosca comment about the time/value equation he's correct..........except for the notion of the experience. As RonB commented, what to do with a bumper crop of home grown goodies. I enjoy growing basil, primarily to have fresh leaves for pizza dressing or caprese. When successful the plants bush out into many more leaves at a given time than we can eat fresh. The solution, for us, is to make a batch of pesto and package in manageable sizes for meal prep, or run through the dehydrator to crush into small flakes for seasoning. Cost/time efficient? Not in today's world, but satisfying nonetheless.
I did that with my basil a couple-t’ree years ago. I wound up with what I remember as almost a gallon of pesto! (But memories are fickle, and it was most likely much less than that. But at least a quart.) It was GREAT. But pine nuts… holy heck, are they expensive. But pesto is expensive, too. I decided that one was a wash, excepting that I probably still have some of it in the way back and bottom of the freezer, and I have more fresh basil now.
We have a bumper crop of basil this year. I think I'm just gonna freeze small portions of whole leaves. They will be fine to add to cooks, but I wouldn't want to put frozen basil on pizza...
Mosca if you get back to making pesto try using skinned almonds (skins add a bitter note) instead of pine nuts. I prefer the flavor of almonds...........
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