Tomato Stock

My tomato canning season in 2011 was almost non-existent.  September 1, 2011 saw us living between our new house with the new gas range not hooked up and the kitchen packed up enough at the old house that canning was pretty much impossible.  We signed all the formal paper work on September 15 making the house officially ours and September 18th headed down south to our vacation home in Florida.  Somehow in the chaos of the move about 2 L of tomato stock along with a few more refrigerator items didn't make their way from a cooler to refrigerator.  I was so dismayed loosing that tomato stock!

As a result we had only a very few jars of tomato stock until this tomato season.  My tomato stock is like liquid gold.  It is cold collected so never exposed to heat before the canning process.  That gives it a deep amber colour full of rich tomato flavour.  It is beyond delightful!  While I use tomato stock for cooking, I have been told is can be used to make delicious cocktail drinks as well.
Pictured are the first 8 - 250 ml jars I canned of tomato stock this year.  By the end of the season I canned 16 - 250 ml jars and 4 - 500 ml jars of tomato stock.  I had one problem with a 500 ml jar so should have had 5 of them but decided to err on the side of caution.  I will talk about that in a bit.  Doesn't the tomato stock look lovely in the jars?