Either way you put it it’s tomato time. I picked up my 25 pounds of romas today that Sustainable Greenlake had delivered and set to work tonight after the littlest one was in bed. I ended up using about 18 pounds worth to make ketsup since my pot could only hold 2 gallons of liquid at a time. From this I got 3.5 quarts of glorious ketsup – not too sweet which makes it the perfect base for bbq sauce without the long simmer time since that has already happened.
The remaining tomatoes will probably become either tomato juice, roasted tomato soup or red chili sauce to can.
Have you ever seen a roma mill? It’s a magical creation with a large hopper into which you stuff all kinds of softened things like steamed apples, grapes or tomatoes. You turn the crank and the wonderful part of the fruit that you want comes out a strainer and into your bowl. The part you don’t want – the seeds and the skin head out the other end into a separate bowl. It’s pure genius.
I quickly washed & halved the tomatoes then threw them in the hopper and let my six year old take it from there. In no time flat we had 2 gallons of tomato puree simmering on the stove. You can also do this without a roma food mill but if you cook things like tomato sauce or applesauce it’s worth it’s weight in gold. Just imagine making applesauce and not having to peel or core the apples!
If you don’t have a roma you can simply cut up the tomatoes and cook them for about 45 minutes with the onions then run everything through a food mill or force it through a sieve with the back of a wooden spoon. Return the juice to the pan and cook with the spices, sugar & vinegar until it’s the thickness you want.
Homemade Tomato Ketsup
- 16 pounds organic saucing tomatoes such as Romas
- 2 large onions, peeled and chopped
- 1 clove garlic or 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 2 cups evaporated cane juice
- 2 cups Rockridge Orchard cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns
- 1 teaspoon dry mustard
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1/8 teaspoon whole cloves
- 1 pinch allspice
- pinch crushed red pepper
- 1 pinch celery seeds
Simmer for several hours until desired thickness (mine took about 4.) You may want to put the spices in a spice bag so that you can take them out during cooking if you decide the flavors are getting too strong. In fact, I recommend not adding them until your ketsup is starting to get thick because the spices can get way too strong as the volume reduces and then the sauce can tend to get bitter. If you have an immersion blender you can give it a good whiz to be sure any onions are broken down and make the texture nice and smooth. One other thing I considered doing but didn’t – if you want super thick ketsup you can add a little pectin to it. I use pomonas pection that you can buy from PCC and that will thicken it up and redice the simmer time. I wanted to be sure mine would pour out of a bottle so I didn’t do that this time. Ladle into jars and process in a water bath for 15 minutes.
This ketsup will be going into a large batch of maple baked beans that I plan on making next week when the weather switches from freak summer to early winter. I am already dreaming of stuffed cabbage rolls smothered in ketsup sauce and ketsup glazed meatloafs. The flavors of winter sound so good as I face taking out the last of the summer fruits this weekend!
9 responses so far ↓
1 kitsapFG // Sep 26, 2009 at 11:03 am
My Roma food strainer is a workhorse and was great for peeling plums too. I sliced and pulled the pit out but then ran the halves through the food mill with the salsa screen on (bigger pieces) and it removed the skin for me. Perfect for jam or plum butter making.
2 admin // Sep 28, 2009 at 1:59 am
Nice – for some reason I didn’t think of that until I had cooked the plums, then I ran everything through. Just need to get used to having so many fun toys around…I sure wish I could swap you something for that plum butter. Every time you mention it I salivate.
3 Katie // Sep 28, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Fellow farmer, how have you been?? Busy I see:)
I have been canning like crazy. Waiting for the blasted tomatoes to ripen. My hubby grew up making ketchup and was so traumatized by it he forbids me from making any. Weird eh?
4 Sandy // Sep 28, 2009 at 8:52 pm
I love, love, love my Roma! I just bought 20 lbs more apples because making sauce with it is sooooo easy.
5 admin // Sep 28, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Katie – did his mom dip him in the hot vat when he was naughty? How does one get traumatized by ketsup? I thought I had been traumatized by eating heinz :p Hope you have recovered from your martial arts injuries! I have not been so good about keeping up with my bloggy friends this summer but I’m winding down the canning and looking forward to a nice, slow winter…
Sandy, doesn’t it rock? What kind of apples do you like for saucing? Last Jan when I started this crazy bus I ran out and bought up the last of the ones at the market and they were NOT saucers. The sauce was bland and brown, and they were $2 per pound. And after shopping for organic apples at PCC I thought THAT was a steal. Now I know – buy the early apples, better sauce and $1 – $1.5 per pound depending. If anyone knows a better deal please share!!! I still need to make about another 100 pounds of applesauce to get us through to next Jan so I’m all ears, right down to the core. Feel free to boo.
6 Joshua McNichols // Oct 10, 2009 at 12:01 am
We made Ketsup too this year. My son prefers “factory sauces” of all kinds to homegrown, so we saved a squeezy ketsup bottle to disguise our homemade stuff. It was from the Canning Across America site. At first I thought it was too strongly vinegared (maybe factories get by with less vinegar by pressure canning). I suspect all that extra flavor will disappear after it’s refrigerated.
7 admin // Oct 10, 2009 at 12:22 am
I need to spend more time on that site! I’m even supposed to write an article for it. Ironic that I’ve been too busy canning to read about canning (or to cook dinner for that matter)!
8 Meatloaf that Makes the World Seem Better // Oct 10, 2009 at 12:52 am
[...] sauteeing mix together: 1/2 cup ketsup 1/2 cup 1/2 and 1/2 or cream from the top of your raw milk 3 eggs 1 teaspoon cumin 1/2 teaspoon [...]
9 I’m Back! And Ordering Seeds. And So Should You. // Feb 1, 2010 at 1:02 am
[...] dried and canned whole and still ended up buying 25 pounds for <a href=”http://www.sustainableeats.com/2009/09/26/you-say-catsup-i-say-ketsup/”>ketsup.</a> We are down to 3 pint jars of spaghetti sauce, 5 jars of romas recipe-ready, and 2 [...]
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