As promised here is my tomato soup tutorial!!
Tomato Soup
Other things you'll need:
Steam Canner
Wide mouth canning funnel
Magnetic lid lifter
Sure Grip Jar wrench
Large Pot (I use a 22 quart pot)
Strainer
3 Large Bowls (about 4 quarts sized)
Whisk and Long stirring spoon
Glass Bottles (sometimes I call them jars or cans all the same thing)
Lids
Rings
A few things I found helpful:
*Measure your tomatoes using a marked bowl or an ice cream bucket. I filled about three ice cream buckets worth of tomatoes and got 10 quarts of soup in the end.
*Load your bottles into the dishwasher before you do anything else. Then they can be washing while you are preparing and they'll be ready when you are!
*Get a babysitter to watch the kids.
Ready go!!
1. Wash your tomatoes
I don't know about you put I don't like mud and junk in my tomato soup, so wash em good!
I like to fill up one side of my sink with warm water and scrub the gunk off the tomatoes.
Then I separate the clean ones into the other side of the sink so they are ready to be cut up.
Tomato Soup
- 14 quarts ripe tomatoes
- 7 medium onions
- 1 stalk celery
- 14 sprigs parsley
- 3 bay leaves
- 14 tbs flour
- 14 tbs butter
- 3 tbs salt
- 8 tbs sugar
- 2 tsp pepper
Other things you'll need:
Steam Canner
Wide mouth canning funnel
Magnetic lid lifter
Sure Grip Jar wrench
Large Pot (I use a 22 quart pot)
Strainer
3 Large Bowls (about 4 quarts sized)
Whisk and Long stirring spoon
Glass Bottles (sometimes I call them jars or cans all the same thing)
Lids
Rings
A few things I found helpful:
*Measure your tomatoes using a marked bowl or an ice cream bucket. I filled about three ice cream buckets worth of tomatoes and got 10 quarts of soup in the end.
*Load your bottles into the dishwasher before you do anything else. Then they can be washing while you are preparing and they'll be ready when you are!
*Get a babysitter to watch the kids.
Ready go!!
1. Wash your tomatoes
I don't know about you put I don't like mud and junk in my tomato soup, so wash em good!
I like to fill up one side of my sink with warm water and scrub the gunk off the tomatoes.
Then I separate the clean ones into the other side of the sink so they are ready to be cut up.
2. Cut up your tomatoesGet two bowls- One for mulch (or garbage) and the other one for the good stuff.
My silver bowl has quart lines on it so I know how much I'm cutting up, very handy!
Notice Dustin's superb cutting skills!
Core your tomato by cutting a round hole in the top and then chop them up into fourths.
Then dump the tomato pieces into a large pot on the stove.
3. Add the other veggies
Cut up onions, celery, parsley and add bay leaves.. Dustin threw in some peppers when I wasn't looking. It should look something like this...
4. Boil
Boil your soup until the celery is tender. It will look something like this...
5. Strain
After your celery is tender you you'll want to strain the vegetable chunks out of your soup.
This strainer works like a charm. They make ones that attach to your Kitchen Aid but I haven't invested in one just yet.
As you strain leave the soup in the large bowls. Then you can wash out your original pot and add the strained soup back to finish cooking.
Add salt, sugar and pepper.
6. Thickening
In a separate pot combine your butter and flour and stir it together. To get the lumps out do a trick my mother in law taught me...
Add some tomato soup to your butter/flour paste, stir with a whisk and stir and stir.
Keep adding cup fulls of soup until all your clumps are all smoothed out.
Then add your mixture to the big pot of remaining soup and bring to a boil.
You can strain it again if you want. I never do and its turns out fine. But if you want to go right ahead!
7. Prepping the cans
Put your lids in hot but not boiling water to activate the gluey stuff on the back of them.
Lay a towel down on your counter top, line up your squeaky clean bottles on the towel and get ready to fill them.
8. Pour your soup in the bottles
Using my handy dandy bottling tool (a funnel) I easily pour my soup into quart bottles. I like to use quarts cuz my family eats a lot! Feel free to use pints if you'd like!
9. Wipe off the bottle tops
To be sure your bottles will seal properly wipe down the mouth of your jars.
Also check your jars for cracks.
One of our bottles happened to be cracked but Dustin notice, phew!!
If you don't catch the cracks your bottles will explode when you are processing them.. very sad!
Check for cracks and save yourself the tears!
Use tongs or a magnetic lid lifter to get your lids out of the hot water. Place the lid on the mouth of the jar then screw bottle rings on snugly but not too tight!
10. Sealing the bottles
I use a steam canner and it works great. Put your jars on top of the rack, making sure none of them are touching. I can easily fit four quarts in mine. Put the big canning lid on top of your base. When you see steam coming out the little hole on the side of the lid, set your timer for 15 minutes.
11. Almost done
After 15 minutes, carefully remove the processed bottles from the rack. I have this cool little grabber tool but tongs will work just be careful!
You should hear popping noises when your cans are fully sealed!
Once your bottles have cooled label them with the year and what is inside!
12. Eat
Dustin enjoying some soup that was left over!!
13. Clean up
Good luck with the dishes. Canning gets pretty messy. Try to clean as you go!
Enjoy your yummy soup and then take a nap!!
I tried to be as clear as possible but sometimes things get lost in translation...
Leave a comment if you have any questions :)
Happy Canning!!
I tried to be as clear as possible but sometimes things get lost in translation...
Leave a comment if you have any questions :)
Happy Canning!!
