We should totally have a Lake Ontario Region canfest! People are definitely welcome at my place, but I love an excuse to go to Ithaca, too --- it's a great town. (And not everyone might want to cross the border.) Where I live in Prince Edward County is now actually a bit closer to Ithaca than Toronto was --- we cross the border in the gorgeous Thousand Islands. Marie is only a couple of hours East of here, I know. Anyone else? > One question -- when you make your sauce, do you basically just quarter the tomatoes, put them in the pot and cook (to be pushed through the food mill later?) Usually I do it this way now, since I got my food mill ($3 at Goodwill!). IT takes out the cores and skins and most of the seeds. > or do you food mill them first? Never food-milled first (it's so much easier to mush 'em when they're cooked!). Before I had the food mill, I would seed, core, and chop roughly, then start to cook 'em, and after a bunch of cooking (and after I'd scooped out the juice) use my stick blender. Either way, it gets as you said --- chunks of tomatoes sittin on the bottom (a few floatin) with a lot of liquid on top. The longer it cooks, the more homogeneous --- tomatoes break down and the liquid gets more sauce-like. I do my scooping usually after 15 minutes or so of cooking. I usually get from one to three pints of juice scooped out of each batch (which for me is about 7 pints of sauce). > I found when I was trying to do crushed tomatoes and put them through the food mill, that if I let them sit for a while all the solids settled to the bottom, with liquid at the top. Do you put crushed tomatoes through the food mill? They're gonna be sauce, not crushed, after that, aren't they? My crushed tomatoes end up with juice floating on top even after they're in the jars, btw. I figue that's just how they are... Zabby

Foleys are really difficult and slow to extact juices. Today, there are more efficient options. I sold the two foleys I had here, and even my parents never used them either, once they got the old original Victorio with wooden pusher and no spatter screen. Messy yes, but did the same job in seconds. With the latest food strainers, no pre prepping is needed, and no precooking either. You get a nice sauce without seeds and skins right out of the machine. There are photos of the Weston/Roma models elsewhere.

Someone clued me to freezing tomatoes hen we had too many to eat and not enough for a batch. I love it! So much easier than the vittorio strainer or food mill. I wash and core, slice off the blemishes, and freeze in a bag. When time allows or the freezer is full, just slip off the skins, whiz in a blender, and can the juice. No cold break in the finished juice and very little mess. Seems to eliminate some excess water as well. Use the tomato water for pasta cooking, or especially soup or chili water. I freeze in flat bags because im too cheap to spend a lid.

I've used a 'Juiceman Jr.' juicer to make my tomato juice for the past 8-9 years. Before that, I used a Squeezo strainer. The juicer is much less work, and was cheap, like $50 bucks. Last year, I bought a newer model because they now have a much wider shoot for dropping in the tomatoes, which means a lot less pre-cutting. The old one still works, too. I find that I have to put tomatoes through twice, sometimes 3 times for certain kinds. But, it's not hard to do. The first time is great for juice, the 2nd is juice or pulp, the third makes thick pulp that is great for making homemade ketchup if so inclined, or you can just mix it back into the juice. Wouldn't do it any other way now. I can juice a bushel of tomatoes start to finish, including washing them, in about 20 minutes. I do somewhere between 60 and 100 quarts of juice most years, so that tells you this machine is pretty durable. I also use it to make cider in smaller amounts (I don't use that much, and don't have a good way to store it in quantity except canning, and cooking cider kind of mutes the flavor, IMO).