While making salsa, I noticed all the watery stuff that comes to the top. I took about 8 dipper fulls out of each 5 quart pot of salsa. Then I added a can of tomato paste to it.

Wow, it's pretty darn good, a little spicy.

While yours is obviously a mixed product of your salsa, the "watery stuff" from just plain tomatoes has become one of the new darlings of "haute cuisine". Called "Tomato Water", it's being used to make "Tomato Consomme", "Tomato Martinis", as well as other delights that folks are foolishly paying top dollar for.

If they only knew what it really was - lol!!!

Reminds me of one of Martha's shows featuring her mother canning tomatoes. She would cut out the core and squeeze the tomato "water" into a bowl before she "cold packed" her tomatoes. I'm sure she used the water for something, can't remember what now. I laughed when my sister told me she was freezing hers. I just let mine rise to top of the jar and dump it all in when making soup or chili, etc. But, I too have ladled it off, especially when making sauces.

I use a canning tool called a "Sqeezo" for processing tomatoes. If the intended pulp/juice is to be used as tomato sauce, I use a fine screened steeless still stainer to separate the excessive juice from the remaining parts of the tomato once its run though the Sqeezo. This saves time and the heat necessary to reduce the tomato mixture to sauce consistancy. I may lost a little of the concentrated favor in the liquids within the sauce but I do save the drained off juice, which i canned into quart containers for use in soups and frankly warmed up up as a great winter time sipping juice.

When I make sauces, I set the tomatoes in a few crock pots and leave the lid off. I cook it 8-9 hours and then can it.

The tomatoes cook down to about half their volume.

mindwing

Interesting idea Mumsey.

Have you ever made tomato juice in one of those steam juicers? The juice is a light amber color. No red pulp in it. It tastes like tomato juice, but sure doesn't look like it.

Nope, I don't have any of those new-fangled things. I still use the sieve with the wooden thingy!

Ladling the liquid into freezer containers is one of my favorite "by-products" from making salsa. We have used it in soups, Bloody Mary mixes and even as a flavoring for casserole's like mac-n-cheese either by reduction or using to cook the pasta, and then adding the rest of the ingredients tot he reserved liquid and baking. Mmmmmm. Came up with this variation from a past comfort food thread. Mmmmmmmm.