Canning Lesson #3 — Tomato Juice

The garden is plentiful with tomatoes this year.  We bought 9 plants and they are all producing quite well.  I have already canned enough soup for the year and I have frozen some sauce.  Now its time to turn those red beauties into delicious juice that will be a healthy snack for the winter. Thank you, Mom, for the lesson!

It’s hard to write out a recipe.  It’s so simple but here goes.

1. Wash and cut up as many tomatoes as you want.  Add them to a large pan to cook.

2. Cut up celery stalks, green pepper and onion and add them to the tomatoes.

3. Cook until they are cooked through and boiling.  You want to cook them enough to make the tomatoes very soft, but also for the flavors of the other veggies to come out into the juice.

4. Put the veggies through a food mill and crank until all the juice comes out.  It is best to remove the celery, pepper and onion prior to putting the tomatoes in the mill.

5. Heat the tomato juice for just a short period of time.  Add 1 T salt and 3 T organic sugar.  Stir until dissolved.

6. Put water in your cold packer and heat through.

7. Pour the juice into jars and put on the lids.  Place in cold packer and lower all of them into the water so they are totally immersed.

8. Bring to a boil.  Then cook for 10 minutes.

9. Remove and cool. 

10. Drink for great health!