Tuesday, August 30, 2011

"I'll take tomato juice, please"!

The title of this post is how my Grandma Springer advised me to respond if I was ever offered an alcoholic beverage.  I admit I haven't often followed her advice; but hubby and I both LOVE tomato juice.  It seems like no matter how much juice I can, or how much we count and covet jars of it, tomato juice is always the first thing we run out of during Winter months.
Given that I try to make lots of it, I've found what I think is the easiest method for extracting the juice from the tomatoes.  When I'm processing tomatoes for canning, I remove half or more of the resulting juice.  That's it!--no Foley mill or Saucemaster necessary.  There's always plenty of juice left to surround the tomato pieces in the jar.
To be a little more specific; after coring and peeling the tomatoes, I put them in a big pan and break them up into inch-size pieces with my hands. (Thin rubber gloves work well for this.)  I then strain out the juice, adding enough back into the tomatoes for canning them--usually 1/3 to 1/2 of the juice.  I heat the juice and pour it into quart jars; then add lemon juice and salt and process them in a boiling water for 15 minutes.  From a 30# box of tomatoes, I usually get at least 4 quarts of juice.
 "Make mine tomato juice, please" (wink)

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