Bloody Mary Mix

Tomatoes.  Oh my gawd, the tomatoes.  We've canned, dehydrated, canned some more, made soup, had salad, sliced them for BLTs, snacked on them right off the vine, canned some more...  And now this.  This is good.  This is different.  I like this.  I really like this with tequila.  That is called a Bloody Maria, by the way.

If you have loads of little half-pint jars, put this mix up in those...fill them three-quarters full.  This allows exactly the right amount of room for a scant shot of liquor, an ice cube or two, and a ring of pickled jalapeno...put the canning lid/ring back on and shakeshakeshake...instant cocktail in its own serving cup.  Package up two or four of these guys with a 4 oz jar of homemade spicy pickled somethings and a miniature bottle of vodka or three, and it's a darling holiday gift.

The original recipe is here.  I used some jalapenos out of our garden instead of hot sauce and added lemon juice to each jar in the amounts recommended by the Ball Blue book (2 tbsp per quart, 1 tbsp per pint, 1/2 tbsp per half-pint) to insure that the tomato juice was acidified enough.

How much you get out of this recipe depends on how thick or thin you want your final product (i.e. how much water you add).  We like ours fairly thin, so we got about 4 quarts worth.  Your mileage may vary (YMMV)

If you don't want to use this as a cocktail mixer, it would also be an excellent tomato soup.



Bloody Mary Mix
Makes 4 quarts (YMMV)

7-8 lbs. chopped tomatoes
1 cup bell peppers, chopped
1 cup carrots, chopped
1/2 cup celery, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped
1 small handful parsley, chopped
1 bay leaf
3-4 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp seasoning salt
1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
lemon juice

Combine tomatoes through bay leaf in a large pot.  Add water to cover.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 45 minutes.  Remove bay leaf.

Use an immersion blender to puree the mixture.  Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.  Return juice to a clean pot and add sugar, seasoning salt and worcestershire sauce to taste.  Bring to a boil.  Boil to reduce if the mixture is thinner than you want, or add more water if you want it thinner.

To can, clean and sanitize half-pint, pint or quart jars (for an overview of water bath canning, go here).  Add lemon to each jar (1/2 tbsp per half-pint, 1 tbsp per pint, 2 tbsp per quart).  Fill jars with juice, leaving at least 1/2" headspace (or only fill part-way to make individual drink containers...more headspace is better than less!).  Process in a boiling water bath for 40 minutes.

To make a cocktail, use about 3/4-1 cup bloody mary mix to 1 shot vodka or tequila.  Shake with some ice.  Add celery salt, pickle juice, olive juice, pickled pepper juice (!!!!!), or a stalk of celery...whatever tastes good to you! Pin It