Last week, it was peaches.

This week, tomatoes!

Our garden tomatoes did, well, nothing, so I got a printer-paper box full of canning tomatoes at the farmer's market last weekend. I spent 2 days making this amazing canned tomato soup: (my friend Jill gave me the recipe, but then I found it online too, at this site:)

• 6 onions, chopped
• 1 bunch celery, chopped
• 8 quarts fresh tomatoes (or 5-6 quarts of juice)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup salt
• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup flour

Directions

1. Chop onion& celery.
2. Place in large kettle w/ just enough water to keep them from burning.
3. While this simmers, cut tomatoes (remove stems if not using strainer).
4. Add to kettle& cook until tender.
5. Place this all through Victorio strainer (or similar).
6. Return to kettle.
7. Add sugar& salt.
8. Cream butter and flour together& mix thoroughly with two cups of COLD juice, until dissolved (or blend together in a blender), to avoid lumps of flour in the juice.
9. Add butter/flour mixture to warmed tomato juice. (Add before it's hot, to avoid lumps of flour!).
10. Stir well.
11. Heat just until hot. (If it gets to a boil, it can make the flour lumpy).
12. Just prior to boiling, turn off the burner. (It will continue to thicken as it cools.).
13. Ladle into jars& close securely with lids.
14. Return to canner & process 20-30 minutes (start timing when it's at a 'rolling' boil).
15. Remove from canner & allow to set until sealed (approx. 12 hours) To serve, mix equal parts tomato concentrate to milk, and add 1/2 t. of baking soda per pint as it cooks (1 t. per quart).

It is SUCH a delicious recipe. It's not at all difficult, it just takes a bit of time. I did 2 batches, and got 10 quarts and 8 pints of soup concentrate. The total cost to make that amount of soup was about $30 - and I used local organic flour, butter, and onions, and raw sugar (i should have tried substituting a bit of honey for the sugar. Next year i will!). If I had my own garden tomatoes, it would have been only $15. Pretty incredible, huh?

Next year I'm hoping for better luck in the garden. I'd love to try this recipe with roasted garlic and loads of black pepper added.....