Make Your Own Tomato Juice

Chilled homemade tomato juice is better than anything from a can or bottle. You can go lighter on the salt than commercial canners do. Use it for Bloody Marys or simply accent with a squeeze of lime or lemon. Float a perfect green leaf on top, perhaps a small basil leaf or a celery-flavored lovage leaf from the herb garden.

Tomato Juice

1. Wash, core and quarter 5 pounds of ripe red tomatoes.

2. Place in a large nonreactive pot over medium heat. Add 1 small red onion, halved, and 1 celery rib with leaves.

3. Cover and cook, stirring often, until tomatoes are soft, about 30 minutes. Cool. Discard onion and celery.

4. Pass tomatoes through a food mill fitted with the fine sieve. Discard solids. Measure juice and return to cleaned pot.

5. For each 4 cups of tomato juice, season with 1 tsp. sugar, up to 1 tsp. salt and pepper to taste. Stir to dissolve over medium heat. Cool, then chill. Taste for salt. Serve within three days.

—You Say Tomato, by Joanne Weir (Broadway Books, 1998)

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