Homemade Canned Tomato Soup

I was looking through my recipes last week and came across a recipe for homemade canned tomato soup of my Grandma's. Later in the week, I stopped at a friend's house and was asking if were too late to still get tomatoes as I found out a great recipe. Turns out she had just picked the last of her tomatoes and was tired of canning them and gave me what she had just picked! I had enough to make a half batch of this yummy creamy tomato soup. Here's the recipe:

Enough fresh picked tomatoes to yield 32 cups juice (I forgot to weigh the bag--but it's about a paper grocery sack full--does that help?)

4-5 celery stalks, cut into thin slices

2 onions, diced

2 large green peppers, diced fairly small

1 tsp. cayenne pepper

2 tsp. chili powder

1/3 cup salt

2 1/2 cups sugar

1 cup butter, softened

2 cups flour

1. Wash tomatoes and remove stems. Blanch in boiling water long enough for skins to split.

2. Immediately put in cold water. The skins should just pop off at this point. Put peeled tomatoes in large stock pot.

3. Cook tomatoes until they are soft (about 5-10 minutes).

4. In the meantime, cook the celery, onions and green peppers in a small amount of water in another small pan.

5. When the tomatoes are soft, pour into a sieve and strain all the seeds and pulp to yield 32 cups tomato juice.

6. Pour the juice back into the emptied stock pot and add the cooked celery/onion/peppers, cayenne pepper, chili powder and salt. In a separate small bowl, make a roux with the softened butter and flour (do this with your mixer). Add a little tomato juice to make it more liquid. Pour this mix into the juice mixture. Bring to a boil.

7. Boil for 5 minutes. In the meantime, wash your jars with hot, soapy water. Put the new lids in a small saucepan with water and bring to a boil. Then simmer until ready to use.

8. Ladle the soup mixture into pint canning jars. Clean the rims of the jars to remove any residue. Add hot lids and screw the bands on the jars. Process in a hot water canning bath for 15 minutes. Remove from water and let cool on counter. Do not move the jars until they are completely cool and the lids have sealed (popped).

9. To serve, heat the soup mixture and 1 1/2 cups milk per pint. Enjoy!

I wish I would have found this recipe a month ago when tomatoes were being given away by the sackfuls! I'll have to remember that next year!

Now onto the grapes! Grape jam, here we come.......ahhh, I can smell it already!