We eat a lot of hamburger soup in the winter and I like to use V8 Juice as my soup base, adding browned hamburger meat, potatoes, onions, carrots and whatever other veggies I feel like adding. It's our winter comfort food... wonderful with cornbread or crackers on a cold winter day.

I read several recipes people had posted of their version of V8 juice and concocted my own version from all of these.

Here's what I did...

I cored and quartered 25 pounds of tomatoes.


Then in the largest stockpot I had (it actually took 3 of my largest pots, I'm ordering a bigger one!) I placed my tomatoes and squished them a bit with my potato masher to get the juices flowing. Then on medium low heat I began to cook them.

I added to the pot...


An entire bunch of celery, leaves too (they're so flavorful!)

 Two green bell peppers (I had some already sliced in my freezer, so "guess-timated" two peppers).

 A cup of chopped onions.


A pound of carrots, sliced (just scrubbed and sliced them, no need to peel)


And a large bunch of parsley, roughly chopped.



To this colorful combination, I added a tablespoon of canning salt and brought the mixture to a boil, then reduced the heat and let it simmer until all the vegetables were softened (30 minutes to an hour)

After everything was softened, working in small batches, I pressed it all through my food mill, squeezing out all the yummy juices and pulp and to remove any seeds and peels.



After I got all the juiciness I could, I poured the pulpy juice back into my saucepan(s) and heated it to boiling once again.


In the meantime, I had sterilized and heated my quart jars and lids.

In each quart jar I poured in the juice to a bout an inch from the rim...



then I added

2 Tablespoons of lemon juice


And a teaspoon of canning salt (optional)


I then wiped the rim of each jar with a damp cloth...


And screwed my lids on to fingertip tightness.



I then processed the jars of juice in a boiling water bath for 40 minutes. After processing, I removed the jars and set them on a folded dish towel on the counter to cool... and to listen for the PING of each successfully sealed jar! Yay!



Now... I had all that pulp and stuff left over from running the veggies through my food meal and it smelled so good and I hated to waste it by just throwing it on the compost pile... so....

I spread it out in my dehydrator...


... and 24 hours (give or take) later, I had this crispy veggie mass...


... which I ground up in my blender and am storing it in a canning jar... Vegetable Powder! To add to soups and stews for additional flavor and thickening!

For a printable copy of this recipe click here.