We used Romas because we had lots of them and I thought they would make a great ketchup. and they did.
3 lbs. ripe tomatoes
1 Medium Onion Chopped
4 Cloves of Garlic Chopped
1/4 cup Brown Sugar/Honey
1 Tbs Dry Mustard
1 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1.5 Cups Apple Cider Vinegar
1 heaping tsp of cayenne pepper - add less if you like it less spicy
This is the basic recipe we used, we threw the entire tomato, minus the stem into the vitamix. Yes, I included seeds and skins. After much internet perusing I found many references to the nutritional and taste benefits found in the skins and seeds of tomatoes, so I decided to be super lazy and benefit my family by doing nothing other than pulverizing the Betelgeuse out of them. we made a huge batch- starting off with 24 pounds of Romas and adjusting this basic recipe from there.
The picture below is after the tomatoes and spices have cooked down for about 4 hours with constant stirring- be sure to keep it moving so it doesn't stick. When it has reached this wonderfully thick consistency - imagine what you want your ketchup to be like then boil it down until you get there, take it off the burner and process your canning jars in a standard water bath. We added 1 tbs of lemon juice per pint and filled them up to about 1/2 inch from the lip of the jars. Immerse in the water bath canner and boil for 30 minutes. I usually have a great deal of luck with my jars sealing, but this time two didn't seal. they went into the fridge and one is already gone.
I ran ours through the vitamix again just to make sure everything was pulverized and the consistency was right.
I believe, if memory serves, we got 17 pints of delicious home made ketchup out of 24 odd pounds of fresh tomatoes. We don't really use ketchup in our house, mostly because of the nasty crap that goes into the manufacturing process- HFCS, lots of sugars, Dyes, etc. With this ketchup though, and the kids like it quite a bit, I don't feel bad giving it to them for a condiment.
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