I hope you can all KETCHUP

Have you ever stopped to read the label on a ketchup bottle? If you have you will know that most ketchups contain not only corn syrup but also high fructose corn syrup. Yuck! When I realized I could make it myself I didn't give my family the choice, they were eating homemade ketchup. 

The problem was, my homemade ketchup was very, very runny. You see one of the ingredients on the recipe that I found was tomato paste. If I was making ketchup from scratch, then why the heck was I adding canned tomato paste?!?! My plan was just to boil the ketchup down until it had thickened, but with the amount of ketchup this recipe makes, that could be days of boiling down... Ha! 

Being my stubborn self, I the  tried to make my own tomato paste, which isn't too terrible if made in the crockpot, but again it takes soooooooo many tomatoes and soooooooo much time. 

This year, thanks to Tic Tok, I decided to try freezing my tomatoes to peel them easily. This lead to realizing that as they thaw, they shrink waaaay down because all of the water comes out of them. 

What I did was core and cut out any blemishes. Then I threw the tomatoes in the freezer for a few days to make sure they were completely frozen. Once they came out of the freezer I let them sit a few hours until the skins started to wilt. Then I peeled and put into a strainer to thaw the rest of the way. I probably could have just let them sit and thaw completely since I ended up running threw a food mill anyway to remove the seeds. I also always save the skins and seeds, and have talked about what I do with them in an earlier post. 

I took 2 - 5 gallon buckets of tomatoes and turned them into a small pot of guts and a LARGE pot of tomato water. The water I did save and boil down for tomato juice, but that's a topic for another day. 

My ketchup recipe is the above imitation Heinz ketchup with a few adjustments. I don't add the tomato paste and prep the tomatoes my own way.

IMITATION HEINZ KETCHUP 

8 quarts of tomato sauce - thawed, and run threw a food mill

4 cups white vinegar 

1 cup white sugar 

2 cups brown sugar 

5 tbsp salt

1 tbsp onion powder 

1/2 tsp cinnamon 

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp allspice 

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper 

1/3 cup Thermflo 

Prep tomatoes. Freeze, thaw and run threw food mill.

Reserve 1 cup tomato sauce and combine with the Thermflo. Set aside

Add the remainig sauce and ingredients to a large pot and bring to a boil.

Once boiling, add Thermflo mixture and simmer until desired consistency is reached. 

Ladle into clean jars and water bath for 10 minutes.

I hope you enjoy this recipe and I would love to know if you try it! 

Until the next time ❤️