Plum tomatoes and 8-ball zucchini. Blogfinger photo ©

By Eileen Goldfinger, Food Editor @blogfinger

Freezing plum tomatoes.

First start with ripe and firm tomatoes without blemishes.

Blanch the tomatoes:

Fill a large (8 quart) pot with 1 gallon of water. I used a pasta pot with the colander inside. Bring the water to a boil.

Use a paring knife and cut a shallow X on the bottom of each tomato. Place approximately 10 tomatoes at a time in the boiling water. Cook for 60 seconds. Use a slotted spoon and transfer the tomatoes to a large bowl with ice water.

When the tomatoes are cool enough to handle, peel the skin off the tomatoes. You can use your fingers or a paring knife. Remove the stem end of the tomato. Slice or dice the tomatoes and place portioned amounts in a freezer Ziploc bag. Don’t forget to label the bags with amount, date and content. Lay the bag flat and place in the freezer.

I used gallon sized freezer bags and measured four cups of tomatoes per bag. This produced 4 freezer bags of tomatoes. This was from a 1/2 case of small plum tomatoes.

Freezing zucchini.

Blanch your zucchini:

Fill a large (8 quart) pot with 1 gallon of water. Bring the water to boil. Place 6 to 8 zucchini in the boiling water (the larger the zucchini the less in the pot at one time).

Don’t leave the zucchini in the water more then 60 seconds (this is based on small zucchini, not baseball bat size). If you cook them too long they will be mushy. Place in a large bowl with ice water to cool.

When the zucchini has cooled slice or dice them and place the pieces in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicon baking mat. Place in freezer. This method freezes each piece individually.

Measure the frozen pieces into the amount you want and place them in a Ziploc freezer bag. Label the bags with amount, date and content and lay flat in freezer.

Editor’s note:  If you want to eat in our house, you had better be good to Mama:

MARY McCARTY from the film Chicago