Gas Pains

Tom grew up in Milwaukee, bartended in Wauwatosa in the '70s and moved here in 1984.

Commentary, observations and musings about the outdoors, life in general and maybe Tosa politics and personalities will be the order of the day. He savors a lively debate as much as terrific cooking.

Bloody Marys Anyone?

Bloody Marys, Canning Your Own Food, Tomato Juice, Uncle Dick

Some of you already know that I've been chilling-out up north with a couple of girls.  My four-legged girls.  It's been a bonus sort of weekend filled with getting caught-up on some day job stuff, daily walks off-lead in the woods, sitting by the woodburner and gorging on Netflix after dark.

And making a giant batch of the incomparable Uncle Dick's Tomato Juice.  The foundation upon which the world's best Bloody Mary is built.  (It's exceptional straight-up too).  The initial attempt at this was quite modest.  The last few years I'm going for major volume.  When I retire I'm thinking semi-commercial volume.

One of my fondest childhood memories is of my favorite uncle making tomato juice.  That's weird isn't it?  Nevertheless, I think every family had a Foley Food Mill for grinding-up all sorts of stuff like apples and tomatoes.  I still have the original ancestral food mill in the basement but it's dented and rusty and the paint is crumbling from the wooden handles.  Probably lead-based paint too.  So in the basement it shall remain.  I have a newer, stainless model of the Foley mill that I purchased at Fleet Farm.  The home canning aficionado's all-purpose resource - Fleet Farm has everything you need.  But I digress.

About that juice.

I fetched jar-upon jar of canned tomatoes from last year's garden and simply dumped them into the mill and merrily went about grinding the contents into juice.  It's rather old-school as far as juicing goes but it works just fine.

Periodically removing the pulp for the compost bin and grinding away I filled two pots.

Gently raise the heat, fill the sterilized quart jars and process in the canner for another fifteen minutes.  When the lids pop they're good to go.

More than five gallons of bottled, red sunshine.  Thanks for the inspiration Uncle Dick.  You're the best!

Bottoms-up...

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