Preserving Tomato Paste from a can

Oftentimes Italian dishes require the use of small amounts of tomato paste, typically a tablespoon. If you are lucky, you have access to one of those Italian grocery stores that sells tomato paste in a tube - such a good idea!

However, sometimes you might not have access to that Italian store. Recently, I decided to make Pasta with Tomato Vodka Cream Sauce sort of last minute. Because I could only shop at my local American supermarket, I ended up buying one of those cans of tomato paste.

After using up one tablespoon, I had to figure out what to do with the rest of my tomato paste. I can't remember where I read this great idea, but you can just squeeze one tablespoon sized "aliquots" of tomato paste onto a tray and freeze it. After they have frozen, you can remove the pieces individually and put them in a bag. The next time you need one tablespoon of tomato paste, you don't even need to measure it! Just take one of your tomato paste balls from the freezer and drop it into the saute pan. I find that the frozen pieces work just as well in recipes.