Tuesday's tip: Freeze whole tomatoes to store for off-season cooking

This summer I only planted two big tomato plants (along with a whole lot of cherry tomatoes), but it still gave me more tomatoes than I could easily get through in a week. I decided to tried something new to save them for later in the year, by freezing them whole.

First I checked a number of how-to websites and discovered that tomatoes will need to be cooked after being frozen, as they become watery and don't taste good raw. No worries. I plan to chop them up and chuck them into soups, casseroles or pasta dishes like I would use a tin of chopped tomatoes.

All I did was wash and dry the tomatoes, then chuck them in a ziplock bag in the freezer. I kept on adding to the bag over a couple of weeks until it was full. You can also cut out the woody centre if you wish, but I decided to see what would happen if I didn't.

Only use perfect tomatoes for this, ones with no bug holes or rot.

In the next photo you can see my ziplock bag of frozen tomatoes at the front right-hand side of my dedicated vegetable drawer in the freezer.

In case you're curious about what else is pictured in the photo above, you'll see bags of grated zucchini from my garden, bags of cooked spinach and silverbeet also from my garden, bags of roasted capsicums, and bags of pasta sauce a friend gave me to help out when baby number two comes. (Thanks Jessica!)