Making Tomato Juice.

This is how I make tomato juice from fresh tomatoes from my garden. I hope you enjoy! Its a little work but way worth it not to have all those additives in your food. 

These are Roma tomatoes cut in half and the core cut out. I put them in a large stock pot on low. Be sure not to scorch the tomatoes or they will have a burnt taste and have little black burnt specks in the juice. I cook mine for several hours on low and then turn them up to medium about halfway through. 

When the tomatoes are cooked really good, I put them in a blender and pulse them to get everything blended good. Be very careful not to get burned. The hot juice will push to the top. As you can tell, this blender has been used for tomatoes more than anything else and needs a good cleaning. Tomato juice is between the buttons. 

After being blended good the juice goes into this contraption. A bowl is placed under the colander to catch all the juice. 

 Another view. The wooden peg is used to push the juice out of the cooked tomatoes and into the bowl below. By far this is my favorite part of canning tomatoes juice. When I was a kid, this was one of my many jobs when canning but my favorite.

Be sure to wash your jars with hot soapy water. Some people put them in boiling water to sterilize them but after they are washed I put them in the oven on low. The heat from the oven sterilizes them and that is one less thing I have on the stove top. When I need the jars, I take them out one by one and add the juice. Clean off the rims of the jars with a damp paper towel or clean cloth. Sterilize the lids and rims in boiling water and tighten down hand tight. Not too much pressure or they will buckle. Process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. 

After 10 minutes, remove from the water bath and place on a clean towel. Wait for the beautiful sound of jars sealing. Pop, pop, pop!! After one day, I remove the rims from the jars. You can leave them on but after awhile they may become stuck and very hard to remove. 

I also made diced tomatoes this year. Here is a picture of how they turned out. Pealed, cored, diced and placed in pint jars and processed in a hot water bath for around 10 minutes. 

Happy Canning!!