Heart's Keep Journals

When I was a kid, my grandmother used to make tomato ketchup and I never really understood why it was called ketchup when it wasn’t anything like what I had with my fries.  In the past, Scott and I have tried to make some and failed miserably.  This summer, with more tomatoes than I can could possible use, we decided to try again.  I found a recipe on a website I use all of the time, but it didn’t quite suit us.  For one, it said to run the stuff through the blender.  After making a batch that way, I realized why what my grandmother had made was called ketchup.  Those were the ingredients and the blending created what you put on your fries.

After that, I decided I didn’t want mine done that way.  I wanted to have good, old fashioned ketchup or what I prefer to think of as relish.  So I stopped blending it.  And I made a couple more minor adjustments to the recipe as well.  So I’m putting it here for safe-keeping because I’m sure this is one we’ll use over and over again.

Ingredients

12 pounds of tomatoes – blanched, peeled, chopped

1 pound onions

1/2 pound red (or yellow) bell peppers

1/2 pound green bell pepper (or banana peppers.  Hey, I use what I’ve got)

2 cups apple cider vinegar

4 cups of sugar

2 tablespoons salt (in the last batch, I left the salt out completely because we try to stay low sodium)

Spices

1 tablespoon dry mustard

1/2 tablespoon ground red pepper (I use a tad less than that)

1/2 tablespoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon allspice

Directions

You can do this part however you want, but this is what works for me, and creates that old fashioned taste I wanted but cuts back on cooking time.  Place the chopped tomatoes into a big pot and heat them to a boil.  Then, drain off the juice into another pan.  You can take the juice, strain it, then cook it a bit to give yourself a little tomato juice. I usually get around a quart.  Return your tomatoes to the pot and add the peppers, onions, vinegar, sugar, and spices.  You can cook that on low until it gets to the consistency you’d like or you can put it in the crockpot and cook it on low there.  We’ve just been using our big pot we got for such projects.

When you’re done, put it into sterile pint jars.  I get 4-5 depending on how thick I let it get.  Process them in a waterbath for about 20 minutes.

It’s wonderful on homestyle hashbrowns, eggs, peas, sandwiches.

Now, before we start, let me explain something.  I made this recipe the first time without some of the ingredients (I’m not telling you which ones but you can probably guess.) and the kids didn’t care much for it.  In fact, they said it wasn’t right.  So I added a couple of things to it and they’ve loved it ever since.  So I’m just going to put the recipe down the way I make it.  I’m going to figure that anyone who reads this knows how to scald tomatoes to take the peel off, so I’m not going into that.

Ingredients

5 pounds ripe tomatoes (approximately 8 cups)

3 cups chopped onions

1 cup seeded and chopped chili peppers (We use jalapeno.)

1/2 cup green peppers (I’ve used banana pepper instead.)

1 cup cider vinegar (labeled 5% acidity)

3 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 can tomato paste

1 can large can tomato sauce

Directions

After peeling, core and chop tomatoes.  In a 6 to 8 quart saucepan, combine all ingredients.  Bring to a boil, stirring often.  Reduce heat and simmer 30 minutes or to desired thickness.  I cook mine down quite a bit because we like a thicker salsa.  Immediately fill hot pint jars with salsa, leaving 1/2-inch headspace.  Carefully run a nonmetallic down inside of jar to remove trapped air bubbles.  Wipe jar tops and threads clean.  Place hot lids on jars and screw bands on firmly.  Process in Boiling water canner for 15 minutes.

It’s supposed to give you 6 pints but that may vary if you cook it down as much as I do.  Stores well and is very pretty in the jar.

So here’s the story for this one.  The first year I gardened, I was stupid and planted 8 cherry tomato plants.  Before long, I had a ridiculous number of cherry tomatoes.  I froze some of them, but that was an absolute waste of time because had to deal with the skins and they were nasty.  And peeling those little things?  Forget it.

I started looking for something to do with them and ran across the idea of picking them green and pickling them.  What did I have to lose?  So I tried it.  While the kids still make terrible faces at the thought of it, Scott and I really enjoy them.  And when he takes them up north, they’re a big hit.  Now I grow too many cherries every year just to make pickles with. It’s super easy and a neat thing to do with all of those little monsters.  Read somewhere that people use them in their martinis instead of olives.  Since I don’t drink martinis, I couldn’t tell you if it’s good.  But might be worth a try.

Posting the link to the recipe at the bottom as well.  I don’t change this recipe much, except for two things I leave out and one thing we’ve been known to put in.  Okay, so I change it more than I think I do.  Cooks are like artists, so we should have that privilege.

Ingredients

Cherry green tomatoes

Garlic

Celery – We don’t use this any more.  Don’t like the taste and can’t tell it does much to change the tomatoes.

Onion

Dill

Green pepper – Don’t always put green pepper, but have been known to throw in a hot pepper.  Makes them hot, in case you couldn’t guess.

Directions

Put small green tomatoes in jar. To each pint add 1 clove garlic, 1 stalk celery, 1 small onion, 1 head of dill, some green pepper. Boil together: 2 quarts water, 1 quart vinegar, 3/4 cup salt (scant). Boil 5 minutes with cover on.

Pour into jars and put in hot bath. Just bring to a boil and turn off heat and let jars stand in the hot bath until cold.

To go to the original recipe, click here.