Roasted Pepper & Tomato soup

Jessi shared a great soup for those of you who still have peppers and tomatoes left to process from your garden.

Roasted Red Pepper and tomato soup 

20 lbs tomatoes peeled, seeded, and pureed

15 lbs roasted red peppers, peeled and seeded (prior to roasting)

1 1/2 roasted sweet onion

8 cloves roasted garlic

1/2 cup sugar

1T. beef bouillon (not soup base)

1 t. smoked paprika

Preparation: Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F (260 degrees C). Cut the peppers into quarters. Remove the seeds and the membranes. Roast the peppers, onions, and garlic. Remove from oven when the skin blisters and turns black on the peppers.  Cover with plastic, or a tea towel, or place in a paper bag until cool. The skins should peel away off of the peppers easily when cooled.
Prepare 5 quarts, lids, and rings. Sterilize the jars and keep them in the hot water till it’s time for processing. Make sure to fill your pressure canner with the recommended amount of water and bring it to a simmer.   

Cooking: Place all ingredients in a large stockpot. Simmer about an hour to reduce by 1/3-1/2. Blend with immersion blender. Bring back to simmer. Remove from heat.   

Filling the jars:  On a dishtowel place your hot jars and using your funnel in each jar fill the jars with soup to 1” headspace.   Remove air bubbles and refill to the proper headspace if necessary. Taking a clean papertowel wet it with vinegar and wipe the rims of the jars removing any food particles that would interfere with a good seal. Using your magic wand extract the lids from the hot water and place them on the now cleaned rims. Add your rings to the tops of each of the jars and turn to seal just "finger tight". 

Processing: Make sure your rack is on the bottom of the canner and place the jars in the pressure canner.  Lock the lid and turn up the heat bring the canner to a boil. Vent steam for 10 minutes, then close the vent by adding the weighted gauge or pressure regulator (for dial gauge canner).  Process for 85 minutes at 10 lbs of pressure (11 lbs for dial gauge canner). If you choose to do pints you will get 10 pints and should be processed for 65 minutes. (Adjust pressure for altitude)  When complete turn off the heat and let pressure return to zero naturally. Wait two minutes longer and open vent. Remove canner lid. Wait 10 minutes then remove jars and place on dishtowel in a place that they will sit overnight to cool. Do not touch or move them till the next morning. Your food may still be boiling inside the jars. That is normal!

Sealing: Sometime in the next hour your jars will be making a "pinging" or "popping" noise. That is the glass cooling and the reaction of the lids being sucked into the jar for proper sealing. Some recipes may take overnight to seal. Check your lids and reprocess any jars that did not seal. Remove rings for storage. 

Labeling: Make sure to label your jars after they have cooled with the name of the recipe and the date canned. If you want to use the shrink labels in the picture you can order them Here!

Finish soup with cream before serving.