As we strive to live as locally as possible, we’ve been learning to make things for ourselves. It’s easy to make your own homemade bread, soup, hamburgers, but it gets more difficult when it comes to those things that you’ve acquired a taste for a specific brand, like ketchup. Mr Chiots is a specific Heinz brand ketchup kind of guy. If it isn’t a Heinz, he won’t eat it. Several years ago I switched to organic Heinz which I like because it has no high fructose corn syrup.
Last year I made a bunch of different kind of chutneys and we started eating those instead of ketchup on a lot of things, like hamburgers. On fries though, Mr Chiots still had to have Heinz. I’ve tried homemade ketchup in the past and I’ve never found one that I liked, until now!
I checked Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It: And Other Cooking Projects out of the library and saw the recipe for ketchup. After reading it through, I decided if we were going to like any recipe it was going to be this one. Since I lack the ability to follow a recipe to a T, I changed the recipe a bit. I used roasted tomatoes instead of canned tomatoes and I used olive oil and ground cardamom since I didn’t have whole pods.
If you would like my amended recipe it’s on my blog, I won’t repost it here (the original recipe of course is in the book, which is free from your local library). I must admit, this is a great recipe, it has that perfect sweet tanginess that I love. This ketchup also makes a great sloppy joe sauce. If you’re in the market for a ketchup recipe definitely try this one! This is the ketchup that will be gracing our table from now on (although I’ll keep a bottle of store-bought around for those picky eaters that occasionally come to visit).
What kinds of thing are you learning to make at home to save money and eat more healthfully?
Not Dabbling In Normal 
I actually started making my own ketchup when I saw your recipe – it is delicious. 🙂 Staying in the condiment vein, I make my own varieties of hummus, various chutneys (spicy and sweet), jams…. In terms of more food-like things, there is the more conventional bread, soups, bean pattys, veg mixes, etc. It feels good to cook them, and even better to eat them knowing the ingredients, the time, etc.
One thing I started making this year is pickles! I am addicted to cucumber-based pickles, and making/canning them myself is not only less expensive, but more tasty. Plus there is the variety factor, and making them to my own tastes. I did pickle some other veg, but have never tried them. We’ll see how it goes – but these cucumber-based pickles, I’m so glad I did it.
Thanks so much for sharing…goind to check out the recipe on your blog. I had forgotten about this book until you mentioned it~~need to add that to my library list.
We made our own jam and pumpkin pie filling this year. Hoping to do so much more next year.
Thank you for posting about the ketchup – I need a good recipe. This year we learned to make dilly beans and dill brusell sprouts – both have been a BIG success.
Cannot wait to make some ketchup!
Switched over about a year ago to exclusively homemade bread. I have been experimenting with trying to come up with the perfect refried beans! Kim
Oh, I love refried beans. I make mine from scratch, I use bacon grease, onions, peppers, spicess and pintos. YUM.
Lard is the key to great refried beans. Bacon grease would be great if it isn’t too salty. (Kim, I’m sure if you found some vegetarian pigs to get your bacon or lard from that would be almost vegan…) Don’t have a suggestion for beans w/o a good rich meat fat.
The ketchup looks great. When we traveled overseas we discovered that ketchup came in many different flavors (some quite supprising to our Heinz palate.) We liked the Naked Chef’s Ketchup recipe, we will be trying your recipe as soon as we have tomatoes.
Hahahaha…yep almost vegan! Not sure the pig would agree to the reasoning!
I have still to perfect the whole vegetarian refried beans things, but when I do I will let you know!
I found a recipe online for refried beans made the cheaters way, which requires no added fat. I can’t speak to the taste as I haven’t had an opportunity to make them, but the reviews are good!
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Fat-Free-Refried-Beans/Detail.aspx
I’ve never had non-vegetarian* refried beans, so I have no basis for comparison, but I’ve had decent success using quite a bit of virgin olive oil as the fat. Can’t post a recipe since it’s a throw-together affair, but I usually use black beans as the family prefers them.
* I’m not a vegetarian by any means, but anything from a pig makes me ill.
[…] it takes a palate adjustment to learn to like and prefer a homemade version of a store-bought item (like ketchup). This is something you probably don’t want to do all at once. A great place to start is by […]
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