canning homemade ketchup

I seem to have been getting on little kicks this summer; garden stuff, school work, now canning. My spell checker still can't seem to figure out if is caning or canning. I'm using them interchangeably. I'm ok with it. I suspect caning involves canes. EDITED TO ADD: apparently it is canning and canner. Two n's. I stand corrected. I have fixed all old errors concerning this. I think.

When friends know that you will look after their produce responsibly, they seem to give freely. Lucky ducky me. With what I'm picking from my garden and some gifted tomatoes, look at today's stash. This might be my favorite time of year.


Ketchup
4 quarts chopped, peeled, cored tomatoes (about 18-20 large)
1 cup chopped onion (about 1 medium)
½ cup chopped sweet red pepper (about ½ medium)
1 ½ teaspoons celery seed
1 teaspoon whole allspice
1 teaspoon mustard seed
1 stick cinnamon
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon paprika
1 ½ cups vinegar

Peel and core the tomatoes. It's easy peasy. Cut a little X in the top.


Place the tomato in boiling water for 30 second to 1 minute.

Transfer to a boil of ice water for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Use your canning tong guys for this.


Remove from ice water. Watch the skin fall off. You may have to give it a little help. Cut out the core and any ugly spots. I use a tomato knife. It's just a serrated knife really. (note the lovely compost bowl in the back!)


Prepare spice bag. Use a few layers of cheese cloth and add the allspice, celery seed and mustard seed.

Tie it up. He's so cute.

Combine tomatoes, onion, and pepper in a large pot. (note the coffee and filters sitting out... hubby and I go round and round about the coffee supplies being out... I vote no)

Cook until tomatoes are tender, about 10 to 15 minutes.

Purée using a food processor or food mill. My immersion blender is about 11 years old now and I'll cry when it no longer works. My kitchen has one outlet so I have to move my pot to the sink area to blend up.


Cook purée rapidly until thick and reduced by one-half. Add spice bag, sugar, salt and paprika to tomato mixture. Simmer 25 minutes, stirring frequently to prevent sticking.

Add vinegar cook until thick (gonna take some time here). Remove spice bag. Ladle hot ketchup into hot prepared jars, leaving ¼-inch head-space. Adjust lids and rings. Process 10 minutes in a boiling-water canner. This whole process will take about 3 hours. Yield: 3 pints. Only 3 pints. 3 yummy pints.


Fair waring: Do not start this project after the kids are in bed. You will be up all night. It takes at least 3 hours. I learned the hard way. Here is my first try of the ketchup with the relish I made the day before (coming soon). Oh yum. Hubby and I were all over this ketchup. It's different from bottled stuff. Different is good.

Next time, I am going to try to make this ketchup in the crock pot like I make apple butter. It's essentially a butter... something cook WAY down to a paste. Immediately after making this, I though, oh no way... nothing can be worth all that work... but then I tasted it chilled the next day and I decided that it was worth it. I just won't be sharing any of this stuff... gotta make it last.

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