Tomato Juicing Party!

Tonight, my family and I learned how to make homemade canned tomato juice!  Over 20 years ago, our close friends of the family, Dean and Nelma McGee, used to do a lot of canning with their family when they lived in Arkansas.  They had enough tomatoes from their garden this year that they decided to can some tomato juice this year.  Luckily, she extended an invitation to us to bring our excess tomatoes over and learn the process, too!

Not only does Nelma have the reputation for being a great cook, she is also an outstanding hostess!  When we arrived at their house this evening, they had a round table set-up in their garage with a plastic yellow table cloth on it.  They had set their juicer up on this table and everything was prepared for us to start. There were 8 of us in attendance for the fun, so it felt like a party! 

After soaking them in a bucket of water, we cut off the tops of the tomatoes, along with any bad spots.  Then, we cut the tomatoes in quarters.

(Note: LOL...Nelma wanted me to put a disclaimer on this entry to make sure everyone knows she doesn't usually go around with no make-up and hair unfixed, but she had been battling serious neck pain all day and didn't decide to do the tomato juicing till last minute.  I think she still looks great!)

 As we were cleaning and quartering the tomatoes, Dean and Kately (and for a short time, Brett)started running the juicer.  Kately would place the tomatoes in the top of the juicer and use a small wooden plunger to push the tomatoes down the to bottom of the white funnel while Dean continuously cranked the juicer.  The peeling and seeds would run into the blue bowl while the juice ran into the white triangular pan.

Kately got to a point where she couldn't keep from tasting the juice every time she put another tomato in the funnel.  Anyone who knows Dean, knows he wasn't about to let her get by with that without giving her a hard time about it!  Looks like he was trying to start a food fight with her, huh?! :-)  He kept telling Kately she was the Tomato Queen.  I told her she was the only kid at school that would be able to say she had made tomato juice with Mr. Dean.  She responded by saying, "That's because I am the only one related to him!" LOL...I love that we have close family friends that my kids think of as family. :-)

After Dean and Kately finished with the juicer, here's the juice we ended up with...it was close to 16 quarts!

Brett was more interested in eating slices of tomato than juicing tomatoes, so of course I had to get a picture of grammy, papa and Brett "taste testing" the tomatoes!

We then proceeded inside with the juice to bring it to a boil for 5 minutes...

Then we filled each jar just below the rim, used a spoon to clear off all the bubbles on the top layer of juice and poured a teaspoon of non-iodized salt into the jars...

 

Finally, the jars were ready to be sealed...Ryan was our official lid tightener since he is SO strong, as our kids would say!

Here is the finished product...now we just wait to hear the lids "pop" so we know they sealed properly!  Ta Da!

The following sign hangs above the kitchen sink at Dean and Nelma's house.  They truly have the gift of hospitality and this sign is so fitting for them.  A BIG THANK YOU to Dean and Nelma for taking the time to invite us over and show us how this process is done.  We were blessed to have met you close to 8 years ago...We love you both like family!