Made It: Ketchup

I picked up 30 lbs of tomatoes the other day at a farm market, intending to can most of them, but I've been wanting to make some of my own ketchup for a while.  Since I had the bounty, and it seemed like more fun than simply canning these beauties, I decided to go for it. 

I took the photo with the wrap still on the tomatoes... that's why they look like that.

The recipe only calls for 2 lbs of fresh tomatoes, which didn't really seem like that much...  but there's a whole lot of other stuff in there!  Mostly onions, fennel, and celery.  And spices.  I used the recipe from Jamie Oliver's Jamie At Home book.  Cook the veggies down for a while...

Then add the tomatoes, fresh and canned (all fresh if you want to use different coloured tomatoes)

Cook it.

Then you whiz it up, put it through a strainer a couple times, add things like vinegar and brown sugar, cook it down to the right consistency, and bottle it in sterilized bottles.  Since I was canning stuff at the same time, I ended up canning the 2 small jars.  However, we've been using any excuse to eat this ketchup lately, and half the big bottle is already gone!  This ketchup is so wonderful - it's like a taste explosion!  I probably should have added a touch more vinegar, but it is still pretty amazing.