Preserving tomatoes 3 ways: Garden blogger Jessica Damiano offers three ways to preserve tomatoes in this fun blog. Your editor has been blessed with an abundant harvest of tomatoes this year. My preservation strategies include:
Freezing: I wash, core and score. That is, I cut out the core of the tomato at the stem end, then score the skin from north to south and freeze in zip-lock baggies. When thawed, the scored skins come off neatly, leaving whole fruit that can be used in soups, stews or chutney recipes.
Dehydrating: rinse the fruit clean and slice into ½ centimeter thick slices around the equator of the fruit. Lay these on a lightly greased baking sheet and place in the oven at 135°F, or use a dehydrator. The result is sun-dried tomato slices that will keep without refrigeration for up to 8 months and make a great gift for friends and family. You can also further process the sun-dried fruit into a sun-dried tomato pesto.