The Recipe for Ketchup that Tastes Like Ketchup.

What is it with

 ketchup?

Ketchup is like the red cover-up for everything my kids eat:
everything they love,
everything they think is gross,
and everything in between.

I set a packet of ketchup on the counter to take a picture for this post,
but when I came back from doing something,
it was an empty packet.
I suppose I could have taken a picture of an empty packet of ketchup,
but it wasn't looking very pretty.

My tomatoes were obnoxiously plentiful this summer,
and I do say obnoxiously plentiful in a grateful, happy sort of a way
(just don't ask me at 3 am when I had two pots of the red posse simmering,
wounded red cuttings hiding everywhere I looked,
and dried seeds dribbled down the front of my shirt).
I decided that THIS was the summer I would find a way to make
home-made ketchup that tastes like ketchup.

I found this recipe EASY blender ketchup at
Chocolate Covered Katie

I altered mine,

just slightly,
to get the taste I was looking for.

After greasing a cake pan with coconut oil,

 

I started with 5 cups of yellow cherry tomatoes

(One 9 x 12 cake pan filled,)

1 small clove of garlic,

1 Tbs onions (more are shown in the picture, but I found them to be too strong,

so I removed most after baking and did not add them to the blender)

I baked in a 400 degree oven for 40 minutes

(or until tomatoes are shriveled and slightly browned).

After scooping the somewhat cooled tomatoes, onions, and garlic into the blender,

I added 2 Tbs. vinegar,

1 Tbs. honey,

1/2 tsp. molasses

1/2 - 1 tsp salt (depending on your salty preference),

and a tiny pinch of cayenne pepper.

Blend up til smooth and enjoy!

(I found that this recipe made approximately 3 cups of ketchup).

I liked this ketchup recipe so much,

I wanted to fix some up to can.

I didn't have enough cherry tomatoes to make them worthy of canning,

so I resorted to my Roma tomatoes.

For each recipe,
I piled Roma halves into cake pans, overlapping in places so no bare cake
pan bottom was showing,
(about the same as I did with the cherry tomatoes,)
spread 1/4 cup of onions on top,
one clove of garlic,
and roasted them in the oven for 40 minutes at 400 degrees F.

The skin on Roma tomatoes is much tougher than on cherry tomatoes,

so if making this recipe, you will need to either blanch and then peel the skins off,

or after cooking, run them through a Sauce Master.

This recipe had to be altered much more as the tomatoes are not as sweet as cherry tomatoes.

 

Molasses weighed in at 1/2 cup,

2 Tbs. honey,

1/2 cup of  vinegar,

1 Tbs. salt,

1 Tbs. lemon juice,

a pinch of cayenne,

and an optional 1 Tbs. sea kelp

(I ad this to anything I think I may get away hiding it in for it's iodine health benefits)

Once all the ingredients were in the blender...

Whoosh!



To thicken the ketchup, simmer on medium-low until the desired consistency is reached,
stirring and lowering temperature as you see fit so it won't burn.


To can,
the ketchup was heated to just about boiling,
and then processed in a canner, the same as tomato juice would be.

(I have a pressure canner, so I just can in that as it is quicker
and the book tells me exactly how long to process tomato products).

I was pretty pleased at how similar it tastes to store-bought ketchup
(although it is best to shake it up before using each time so the ingredients don't separate some).
My husband disagreed with me,
but when I gave him the 'guess which spoon of ketchup is store bought and which is my ketchup,'
he insisted the store-bought one was mine and that it was missing something,
and that mine was the store-bought one.

That was enough to make me happy.

Healthy Ketchup