A big-batch vegetable soup of tomatoes, cabbage, carrots, turnip, string beans, okra, red peppers, spinach, asparagus, beets, and sweet corn, blanched or steamed, then packed in jars and processed.
A big-batch vegetable soup of tomatoes, cabbage, carrots, turnip, string beans, okra, red peppers, spinach, asparagus, beets, and sweet corn, blanched or steamed, then packed in jars and processed.
Ingredients
1peck ripe tomatoes
1head cabbage
1dozen carrots
1whole white turnip
3lb string beans
1lb okra
3whole red peppers
1peck spinach
2lb asparagus
6whole small beets
6ears sweet corn
1teaspoon salt, per jar
Directions
1
Scald the tomatoes by placing them in a wire basket and plunging them into boiling water for one and a half minutes. Cold-dip them immediately. After removing the core and stem end of the tomato, the skin slips right off. Save all the tomato juice. Cut the tomatoes into quarters. Put into a large pail or bucket with the juice.
2
Blanch the cabbage, carrots, turnip, string beans, okra and red peppers five minutes. Cold-dip. Blanch and cold-dip each vegetable separately. Cut each vegetable after it is blanched and cold-dipped into small cubes and add to the tomatoes.
3
Wash the spinach carefully to remove all grit and sand, through several waters. Instead of boiling it as with the other vegetables, steam it in a colander over boiling water or in a regulation steamer with tightly fitting cover; if you can with a steam-pressure canner or a pressure cooker, steam the spinach there.
4
Blanch the asparagus with a little discretion: tie the stalks in bunches with the tips all one way on a piece of cheesecloth, stand them upright in boiling water for two minutes, then lay the bunches lengthwise in the blanching water for another two minutes, so the tougher parts get two minutes more than the tender tips. Cold-dip the asparagus.
5
Wash the beets. Leave two inches of the top and all the tail on while blanching for five minutes, then cold-dip. Scrape off the skin, top and tail; the tops can go right into the soup, and any surplus tops can be steamed with the spinach.
6
Blanch the corn on the cob five minutes. Cold-dip. Cut the corn from the cob, cutting from tip to butt end, and add to the other vegetables.
7
Add no water. Pack the mixed vegetables into clean glass jars, add one level teaspoonful of salt to every jar, partially seal, and cook one and a half hours in a wash-boiler or other homemade outfit. At the end of that period remove the jars from the canner and seal them tight.
8
The cost of this soup is modest: most ingredients come from the garden, and on a buy-everything basis it works out to about seven and a half cents a can. It was canned in tin, using size Number Two, which is the same as pint size in glass jars.
