Homemade Tomato Juice

So I'm at that point with my garden where I'm harvesting a bunch of tomatoes on a daily basis, but just not enough to do something really big with (like canning). I've made 4 different variations of salsa, homemade spaghetti sauce and I slap a tomato on just about everything else that I make. Still,  I have a big mound of tomatoes on the counter that never seems to go down, no matter how hard I try. What could I make that takes a lot of tomatoes but not a bunch of them? The answer- surprisingly - is homemade tomato juice. I had never thought about making my own tomato juice. After all, V-8 is just fine. But now that I've had a taste of my own juice, I don't know if I'll ever be able to go back to the other stuff. And the best part of it all is - it's EASY to make. Honestly, you just chop up your ingredients, throw them into a big pot and let them cook for about 40 minutes then blend it all up with either a blender or a Foley food mill (boy, that's a blast from the Home Ec past). Now that I've made it, I just wish I'd started making it earlier in the summer. Oh well, there's always next year.
I adapted this recipe from one that I found on "Simply Recipes" and I've renamed it "Tami's Terrific Tomato Juice" (I'm a big fan of alliteration).


Foley Food Mill



If you want a smoother juice, just use either a blender or a hand held (immersion) blender to process the juice and then run it through the food mill. If you prefer a bit of a chunkier juice, just skip the blending and go right to the food mill.

Tami's Terrific Tomato Juice
Ingredients
6 pounds of tomatoes, coarsely chopped
2 cups of white onion
2 1/2 cups chopped celery (including the leaves)
2 tbsp honey
2 tsp salt
1 tsp cumin powder
6 drops of Tabasco sauce

4 splashes of Worcestershire sauce

Freshly ground pepper to taste



Raw Ingredients



Put all ingredients into a large stainless steel pot. Bring it to a simmer and cook, uncovered, for about 40 minutes. If you're a canner, I'm sure you'd know how to can this so that you'd have it to enjoy year round.