Tomato Soup

This recipe is from my friend, Sandi who got it from her friend, Judy Zanders. I don't know Judy but thanks, Judy! It's yummy! You can use this tomato soup as a base for other soups as well such as making veggie soup or minestrone. This recipe is a canning recipe so it makes a LOT of soup. You can also freeze it in a deep freeze instead of canning it and you can also use it fresh for a large group (say a dinner at church or family reunion....etc.).



Ingredients
12 quarts of tomatoes (1/2 bushel or 25 lbs)
7 med. onions
½ bunch of celery
3 bay leaves
1.5 cups of flour
1.5 cups of butter
½ cup sugar
2 tsp pepper
Salt to taste

Cook onion, celery, bay leaves in small portion of chopped tomatoes. Blend the onion/tomato mixture in a blender and then run through a sieve. Add this blended mixture to the remaining chopped tomatoes and cook in large pot until everything is hot and cooked down to a liquid. Pour mixture into a blender and run through a sieve. Cream butter and flour, then whisk 2 cups of the tomato mixture slowly, this will make a rue to thicken the soup. Add sugar, salt & pepper. Whisk flour mixture into soup slowly. After it is thickened ~ fill sterile jars 1 inch from the top, screw on lid with ring. Process the jars in a pressure cooker, 10 lbs of pressure for 10 minutes. Remove from cooker and gently place on cooling board leave over night, do not remove jars from the cooling board until cooled, as it can compromise the seal.

Makes approx 26 pints or 14 quarts.


When I'm serving it just as tomato soup, I add about 1 cup of milk to a pint of the soup to make it creamy.