Ketchup!

Edna was inspired to make shrimp cocktail last night so this morning we did some running around to get ingredients. A key component of this cocktail is ketchup but store bought bottled ketchup is all jacked full of stuff that nobody really should be eating so we made our own. We started with a base from elsewhere on the web but of course had to tweak it since what we were left with really just didn’t taste much like ketchup quite honestly.

• 4 lb. tomatoes, diced
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• ½ c. unsweetened apple juice
• a couple of shakes of cayenne pepper
• 3 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
• 1 bay leaf
• ½ tsp. whole cloves
• 1 tsp. celery seed
• 1 tsp. black peppercorns
• ½ c. lemon juice
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tbsp. garlic powder

For the apple juice we chose to juice a couple of Braeburn apples instead of using store bought juice.  That’s just our bag.

The primary ingredients.

Put everything up to and including the vinegar into a soup pot and bring it to a boil. Wrap all of the spices (from the bay leaf up through the peppercorns) in some cheesecloth or a proper spice bag if you have one and toss it into the boiling mixture.

The spice bag.

After it’s boiled down about 50%, pour in the lemon juice and fish out the spice bag and let it keep boiling for about ten more minutes.  Check the flavor; at this point we just didn’t feel that it was tasting like ketchup so we added the salt and garlic power; adjust these to your liking.

On the stove.

Once you’re done boiling it, pour it into a blender and smooth it out. Allegedly it’ll keep about a week in the fridge or you can freeze it.