Good Ketchup Recipe

ducks4you

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Didn't think to look here, some thoughts to consider...
I have done canning with a spice bag before. USUALLY, I find a dishcloth that is holey and has been bleached a lot, so I know that is clean, then cut to fit, fill, and tie closed, to be disposed of after one use.
NOW you KNOW why I save these dishcloths, when others would have disposed of them...like @ninnymary 🤣
I am SURE to have some weekend days soon, too nasty to do outside sports.
 

ducks4you

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More...
 

thistlebloom

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ANYWAY, THESE are going to end up being Some kind of Ketchup/Catsup in the next month. ( I know I already posted this on another thread, but the photo bears repeating, if you no other reason than, Look how MANY tomatoes get wasted after a freeze.) I intend to add one ingredient at a time to taste and see what I like. I am a bit intimidated by some of ingredients that have been used in the condiment, which is why I copied the ingredient label from a purchased commercial bottle.

It's been years, but I was reading a bunch of ketchup recipes from a canning site and one of the things that was most repeated was how the flavor changed after canning. The consensus seemed to be that it was difficult to predict the actual flavor of the finished product once it was processed. I'm talking about people who hadn't been making it for a good while and had the recipe tweaked to their liking. I guess it could take a few seasons of testing to get it right.
 

ducks4you

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@thistlebloom GOOD thoughts!! I guess it really does ferment, then.
I WISH that these tomatoes had turned in time to simply can them, but there were simply too many to leave outside. This will be a good experiment. Thanks!! :hugs
MY only danger is that my family will prefer this, and ONE MORE food product will be ruined. We all CANNOT eat:
meatloaf
lasagne
ANY pies
outside of what I make, bc they don't measure up, so I may be buying myself more work.:th
 

Prairie Rose

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@thistlebloom GOOD thoughts!! I guess it really does ferment, then.
I WISH that these tomatoes had turned in time to simply can them, but there were simply too many to leave outside. This will be a good experiment. Thanks!! :hugs
MY only danger is that my family will prefer this, and ONE MORE food product will be ruined. We all CANNOT eat:
meatloaf
lasagne
ANY pies
outside of what I make, bc they don't measure up, so I may be buying myself more work.:th

You sound like me, ducks, lol. I just tossed the last of my saved tomatoes on the compost heap; I was originally intending them to be green tomato relish for hamburgers this winter, but they turned before I had the time to make it.

There are a handful of things my family refuses to eat from the store after I've made them homemade, but they are relearning to eat them. I work full time in a grocery store kitchen and cook 8 hours a day, sometimes as many as 13. The energy to cook at home after cooking that long isn't always there. My family is sloooowly relearning how to eat some of the premade stuff, because waiting for me to make it means they don't get it but once or twice a year, lol.
 

flowerbug

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the problem we have here is that most food others make has things in it that Mom cannot eat. we just made about 6 gallons of chili and she used her normal recipe, but we were short on tomatoes so she used some canned tomatoes and canned tomato sauce from the store. turns out there was something added to those that she's reacting to so i'll be eating all this chili. i put 14 quarts in the freezer and have a large bowl of it in the fridge to eat up this next week. it doesn't bother me... we don't eat out often because almost all chefs automatically put black pepper on everything.
 

misfitmorgan

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the problem we have here is that most food others make has things in it that Mom cannot eat. we just made about 6 gallons of chili and she used her normal recipe, but we were short on tomatoes so she used some canned tomatoes and canned tomato sauce from the store. turns out there was something added to those that she's reacting to so i'll be eating all this chili. i put 14 quarts in the freezer and have a large bowl of it in the fridge to eat up this next week. it doesn't bother me... we don't eat out often because almost all chefs automatically put black pepper on everything.

Is your mom allergic to peppers? I'm just guessing from the black pepper reference. My mom had a lady at her church who was allergic to any type of peppers and that oddly included black pepper.
 

flowerbug

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Is your mom allergic to peppers? I'm just guessing from the black pepper reference. My mom had a lady at her church who was allergic to any type of peppers and that oddly included black pepper.

she will eat a little amount of green pepper or red pepper or even chili pepper ok, but if it gets a hair spicy/hot then she doesn't like it as a personal preference.

it is the black pepper and variants that get her the worst along with some other additives like sulfites/sulfates (which do get me too at times) but also others.

we only eat out a few places where we know they don't use things like this. any new restaurant we go to we have to ask about what they do with the grill and spices and even then after asking them to not use pepper they still sometimes do it out of habit or don't know because they are using ingredients shipped in via their food suppliers.

i can eat this chili, but i do notice the off-flavor in the tomato sauce part of this so we're not going to be using those again.
 

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