When the wife quit canning it was left up to me to freeze them. I ended up getting a Spreemy Tomato Machine and it really takes the work out of putting up tomatoes. First we cut the whole tomatoes up cutting out any bad spots and the stem and then stew them down for a while til they are good and soft. Then we strain off most of the water to cut down on the space required to put them up and also it gives a much more concentrated sauce. I know, I know; I'm losing some good tasting juice and sometimes I use it in soup or something like that but it is just too time consuming to cook them down enough and too easy to burn and ruin them if you get in a hurry. Then just run the resulting mush of tomatoes through the Spreemy and it takes care of almost all the skin and stems leaving us with a nice puree to put up. I guess if you wanted paste you could slowly cook the puree down some more but that takes a lot of time and we like the fresher taste of the tomatoes that haven't been cooked so long.
Bill
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