I wasn't going to share this cause I figured no one else was as old fashioned as me and still canned things from the garden,but it sounds like there are quite a few gardeners out there - who knew!! This year my hubby planted about 35 tomato plants and there are just the two of us at home- needless to say it was more than we could eat. I have dehydrated them in the past which worked fine but I had a bit of trouble using them that way. It didn't seem worth it to just can them as I can get canned tomatoes on sale that seem just as good.. I decided to try making my own fresh v8 juice especially since the store bought is made from concentrate and can get expensive when you use alot for soup.... so I went to the web and found a few recipes and ended up canning about 40 quarts of v8 juice. I am loving it just drink or add to recipes, especially vegetable soup- I also add a can of beef broth and viola = great soup broth that you can then add anything you want to for veggies - I have found some canned w/o potatoes "called fresh like" that are really good, then I add black eyed peas.
Anyway, the v8 juice has depth of flavor you would not believe... it contains tomatoes, carrots, celery, onion (just a bit), peppers of any color, garlic, worchester sauce, parsley, apple, horseradish (important), salt and pepper and splenda to taste. You can also add a bit of heat - but be careful it seems to get hotter after canning...
You need a juicer to make it so that might be a bit radical, but I plan to make it every year from now on. I hope what I made will last the winter - my daughter "discovered" it and keeps coming over and helping herself, which I invited her to do - what was I thinking?????
JF
