I hope I haven't posted this in Just Recipes before ….. this is what I came up with several years ago when I had to give up commercial V-8 and was NOT happy about it. It's very good and also a fav of several people on Canning2 now. It's a little spicy – Picante V-8 was my favorite.

~dede~

Dede's Best (Low Sodium) Vegetable Cocktail

20 to 25 lbs. tomatoes

3 whole carrots, peeled, chunked

4 stalks celery with leaves, chunked

1 and 1/2 large onion, chopped

6 cloves garlic, peeled & chopped

4 bay leaves

1 tsp. celery salt

3 tsp. sugar

1 Tbsp. worcestershire sauce

4 tsp. horseradish

1 tsp. hot pepper sauce

1 tsp. black pepper

1 tsp. cayenne pepper

1 cup bottled lemon juice

Cut up a couple of pounds of tomatoes into the stockpot & crush

them. Stir tomatoes over high heat until they boil. Continue to add

tomatoes, stirring often. Heat to boiling again. Reduce to a simmer.

Put carrots, celery, onion, garlic in a food processor and reduce to

a pulp. Add the pulp to the pot of tomatoes. Simmer for at least an

hour. Run mixture through a juicer or food mill. Mix juice and

remaining ingredients in a clean stockpot. Heat to boiling, fill hot

jars leaving 1/2" headspace. Process in boiling water bath 25

minutes.

Yield: about 16 to 20 pints

Dede's note 2008:

Last year I mentioned that upon learning that long cooking of tomatoes greatly increases the lycopene content, I started simmering my tomatoes/mixtures overnight in my Nesco roaster.

Doing this has yielded a MUCH smoother/more like commercial texture to my juices. So much better that I have to stop myself from using the newer jars over the older ones LOL!

Adding a bit of oil also greatly increases the Lycopene absorption IIRC, and I added a bit of olive oil to some tomato recipes when appropriate – such as in roasted tomato sauce.

Might as well make our home canned stuffs even better for us, eh?