I did accomplish one thing that has been on my list of things to do, not necessarily on my bucket list but something I wanted to do. I made ketchup this weekend. I have been wanting to make ketchup for a while now and after some research I finally decide to try.
Most of the recipes I found started out with tomatoes (imagine that). If you start with tomatoes from the vine it takes quite a few of them to make ketchup. Then you have to cook them, peel them and crush them. Sounds like a real pain in the you know what. About a week a go it dawned on me
"Why can't I use crushed tomatoes from a can?"
Dah! How dumb.
Now you might be asking yourself "Why would he want to make his own ketchup? There are good ones on the shelf in the grocery store."
I will answer this question. In my research about ketchup I found out companies like to load up their ketchup with sugar and salt because us Americans like our sweet food and salt. The sugar doesn't bother me so much but the salt does. I like to control the salt in my food and if I make my own ketchup I can do this. Besides I think I may have told someone before this is the base of my bbq sauce. Now I am in control.
The above ingredients is all you need to make ketchup.
"Organic crushed tomatoes?" you ask.
Yes, if you look under where it says crushed tomatoes you will see it says 'No salt added.' I don't go out looking for organic food but I buy these crushed tomatoes because of the salt or lack there of. Now go ahead and look on your can of crushed tomatoes you have in the cupboard, I'll wait................................
.............................................................................
Look on the back, if it is a 28 ounce can it will say something like 160 mg of sodium. The crushed tomatoes I am using say 20 mg of sodium. The normal can of crushed tomatoes have 8 times more salt than the organic tomatoes. Be forewarned though, just because it says organic does not mean low in sodium. The other can I have in my cupboard says organic and it also says 160 mg of sodium.
Ketchup as it turns out is pretty easy to make. Start out by 'sweating' one onion and then throw in the rest of the ingredients, cook for about 1 to 2 hours, depending on your desired thickness, and you have it.
Once everything is cooked to your satisfaction put into the blender and blend until smooth.
It will keep 2 to 3 weeks in the refrigerator or simply store it in the freezer.
I sampled some of the ketchup and it wasn't to bad, especially for my first try. I wasn't as sweet as store bought ketchup but it still had good 'ketchup' flavor. I think it will make a good base for my bbq sauce I will be making next weekend.
10 comments:
That's amazing...
P.S.
Our baseball team sucks. We lost the conference today by dropping two games to MPSH: 2-1, 7-3
have you been reading pioneer woman cooks?
one word about the ketchup: heinz
i forgot to mention, king arthurs (i used their recipe and flour) found my website and saw my post about my cheese bread not working quite right. i used the wrong yeast. who knew?
a true Pennsylvanian in the making
I hope the baseball team is going through the same thing jp's softball team went through, senior indifference. It won't matter as long as you get it going for the districts.
If you are going to buy ketchup buy Hunts. Test after test it wins the ketchup tasting wars.
I was just telling the wife about the guy from King Arthurs commented on your post before I came on here. That's pretty cool. I don't know much about baking but Emeril always says to watch the expiration date too. He says the biggest problem people have in their baking is using yeast past its expiration date.
Heinz now makes a low sugar. That's brought to you by none other than Hungry Girl.
BTW - I made ribs again. Falling off the bone, melt in your mouth goodness. Made another key-lime pie. It's not the winner. Big sister -- didn't have graham crackers. Guess what I used? Yup. Fiber One Cereal. Couldn't even tell.
I'm not sure about that Fiber One Cereal in that key lime pie.
I think I am going to buy an attachment for my Weber for that long slow cooking you need for ribs. The first time I may get a chance to use it will be back there when we cook ribs. I think this may be the answer to using a Weber for smoking.
I live in Pa, can buy nothing but Heinz. And I buy the low sugar version.
Will be making ribs this weekend. And the winning Key Lime Pie.
I only buy yeast as I need it. Old yeast will not work.
ribs again friday night.
emmeril's rub, your marinade and sweet baby ray's bbq sauce.
should be good.
Sweet Baby Ray's bbq sauce, one of my favorite store bought bbq sauces. My favorite is Billy Bone's Original.
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