Tomato Soup and Black Work

Our tomatoes are really getting ripe now with the warm weather.....so today I decided to make some tomato soup...I know, I know..a little too hot to think of soup but after last year, we decided that of all the things we canned, we liked the tomato soup most of all....this recipe is from Sue at Oodlekadoodle Primitives ...

its so good with a mixture of varieties of home grown tomatoes...a bit of work but worth it...
the recipe originally came from a old Kerr canning booklet from the 1940s...

14 qts. ripe tomatoes.....comes to about 3 lbs for each quart
7 medium onions
1 stalk celery
14 springs parsley
3 bay leaves
14 T. butter
14 T. flour
3 T. salt
8 T. sugar
2 t. pepper
Wash and cut up  the tomatoes. No need to peel...Chop onions, parsley and celery and add to the tomatoes, cook until celery is tender. Put through a sieve (I used a food mill). Rub flour and butter together to a paste and thin with tomato juice. Add to BOILING soup: stir to prevent burning.Add salt, pepper and sugar. For smoother consistency, you can put it through the sieve again if you like...I didn't...Fill clean jars and process for 30 minutes in a  hot water bath....
I didn't have enough tomatoes for the full amount so did a half recipe......and I think we are going to just enjoy it without canning...I may try to freeze some...I did a search of tomato soup recipes and there are lot of good ones, including some that use chicken stock but I think this one is one of the best...

I also found some more nice black frames so framed this black work from Bird Brain this morning....not the best photo as it was late in the day when I took the picture but think it turned out well...

Hope you have signed up for my July giveaway! if not, please go over to the left at the giveaway link and join  the fun....you can get up to 4 entries and if I get 100 followers, I have another set of snowman tags to give away to a second winner!