Home made ketchup (catsup..? ketchup..?) recipe. Serious yum (and healthy!)

Actually, it's different names for the same thing. Home made ketchup is a wonderful thing. It doesn't take long to make, it's delicious and you get to control how much salt and sugar goes into it and hey, no worries about that high fructose corn syrup everyone is so worried about. Best of all, if you have  a little one old enough to help stir the pot. They love to help stir..

Recently we were given whole a box of tomatoes. When I say a box. I mean, like a case of them. It was intense. There were so many of them we didn't even know what to do with them (ah, the joys of late summer), So, there was a mad rush to roast off as many as we could, sauce making and salad eating. Which hardly seemed to make a dent. I ended up freezing a bunch of the roasted tomatoes but not after using a bunch of them (and some fresh ones) to make some ketchup.

   Having 2 small kids means we go through a lot of.. well condiments in general.. But they do eat a lot of ketchup so when we were running low and I had an abundance of produce, why not try making some?!

I looked up a few different recipes online but it's all a pretty basic method. Here's what I used:

Roasted and raw tomatoes-probably about 8-10 (you could use canned tomatoes)- I didn't peel them or anything I just threw them in. you might want to cut them up or squish them a bit first.
1 small onion, diced (really really small)
1 red pepper, diced (really really small)
2 cloves garlic, diced
 vinegar to taste (about 1/2 cup- white or cider, use what you have)
sugar to taste (I used about 2 tblsp)
salt and pepper to taste
garlic powder to taste (1-2 tblsp)
pinch (1/2 tsp each) ground cloves, nutmeg and Cinnamon  (most recipes called for allspice. I don't have allspice.)
 corn starch and water to thicken (optional)

Some recipes include molasses some don't. I'm all about using what is on hand, I'm not about to go out and buy something just for one recipe. Especially in cases like allspice and molasses, which I'm not likely to use again for a long long time. 

What I did:

cook the onions on med/low until soft. add in garlic and red pepper, Cook until red pepper is soft. Add tomatoes and seasonings, and let the whole thing simmer for a long time. I did mine for about 45 minutes, stirring quite often to keep it from burning. 

If you have a blender (immersion blender-even better) you'll want to toss the whole mess in the blender until smooth and cook it down a bit more to reduce. Which should leave it thick enough.

I don't have a blender, so I processed mine through a food mill a few times then added some corn starch and water (just follow the box directions) to thicken it a bit. It's got bits of skin and onion in it still. I quite like it that way. 

When it cooled, I just tossed it in our empty, washed out ketchup bottle.

There you have it, home made ketchup. I encourage you all to give it a try next time your drowning in extra tomatoes. It's well worth the bit of work. I also recommend roasting your tomatoes first. It sweetens them up so much (yay adding less sugar) and gives it all a lovely taste.

Images from http://www.123rf.com/

Homemade yogourt, Almond milk style! (and make your own greek yogourt)

So, lately I've been seeing lots of make your own yogourt posts on blogs and websites. Awesome.
The basic method is to give your milk (about 4 cups) a little boil then cool it down to a baby bath temperature, then you add 2 tbsp of any yogourt with live bacteria cultures and maintain that warm temperature for 8-12 hours(I put a container in a bowl of warm water, in the oven just below the 150F setting) and taadaaa! Yogourt!

But, I can't have dairy (lactose intoler-boo!) I drink almond milk. It's super yum.  Searching the interwebs for a method of making yogourt with almond milk brings results that generally involve crazy things like making your own almond milk using arrowroot powder to thicken and using yogourt  starters from health food stores. Which is great, but I'm not going to do that. I don't buy those things regularly and I don't intend on doing so JUST to make yogourt. Not when I have store bought almond milk in the fridge and a 90% lactose free yogourt I picked up on super sale. So we improvise.

What I did:
I used 2 cups of almond milk and 1 tbsp of the yogourt
gave the milk a little steam and cooled it down then stirred in the yogourt and transferred it over to a container. Which I placed in my bowl of water in the oven then I just left it alone overnight. (about 12 hours).
When it came out though, it was basically liquid. Almond milk doesn't thicken so well. So I cheated and added some vanilla pudding mix and stuck it in the fridge for a few hours.
That didn't thicken it enough so I decided to switch up my methods and turn it into a Greek yogourt.

Did you know you can make your own Greek yogourt? Seriously, out of any old yogourt, either your home made stuff or that tub you picked up on sale. You see, Greek yogourt is just a thicker, creamier version of the regular stuff. It's just had most of the liquid strained out. Neat huh? All you need is a strainer with a container underneath it (to catch the liquid) and a cheesecloth (fold it in half, twice).  If you don't have a cheese cloth you can also use a coffee filter. I used a coffee filter.

How to make Greek yogourt:
Put your cheese cloth or coffee filter in the strainer, put the strainer in a bowl or over a container to catch the water.
Dump your yogourt in and be patient. Once it's a consistency you like just pour it on back into it's container and put it back in the fridge. Enjoy.

Final results are that while very tasty, the almond milk yogourt is still very thin. Almond milk just doesn't thicken. What I'm going to do next time to solve this problem is just use  a bit of corn starch and water boiled into the almond milk to thicken it. Then I'll cool it and carry on as normal. The pudding mix works fine, I just don't like vanilla and would rather it plain.

Let me know how yours turns out.