This has been a tough summer. My beloved brother has been battling a terminal illness. Both Tygh and I have spent a lot of time with him over the past six weeks. In addition, our kitchen remodel is getting closer. We have spent time in between helping to care for my brother and his family preparing for it. We’ve picked out countertops, sink, faucet, flooring, backsplash. And our garden is going crazy. The race is on to get a few things preserved before our old kitchen is demo’ed next week.
So I spent a very long morning preserving enchilada sauce from tomatillos and peppers raised in our garden. I also tried making ketchup.
We made enchilada sauce last year from tomatillos grown in our tiny little lot in Beaverton. Our tomatillo plants were something to behold. Six feet tall and loaded with large, beautiful fruit. The plants were so large part of them collapsed under their own weight. This year, for some reason, our plants and fruit are much smaller. But there are many! And it’s so nice to open a jar or two in the winter and make veggie enchiladas with homemade sauce.
The recipe is simple. Tomatillos, peppers, onion, garlic, cilantro, salt and lime juice. Roast the first four items for about 30 minutes or so. Let cool a bit. Pour in the food processor. Add cilantro, salt and lime juice and blend until it looks like, well, enchilada sauce! Then put it on the stove and bring to a boil. Have your jars and tools ready. Ladle into the jars and into the preserving pot. 5 minutes later, it’s ready.
Making ketchup was not so simple. I saw a recipe for ketchup last summer and wanted to try it but ran out of time before we moved to this place. Truthfully, I’d wanted to make tomato sauce this year but the idea of boiling, peeling and seeding the tomatoes seemed like so much work when I can buy a can of tomato sauce for 50 cents at the store. Doesn’t sound very frugal or pioneer-like, I know. But I decided to try ketchup. I had all the ingredients and there was no boiling, peeling or seeding involved.
I used about 7 or 8 pounds of tomatoes. Put them in a sauce pan and added garlic, brown sugar, cider vinegar, salt, paprika, cayenne, allspice, cloves, cinnamon and onion. Let it cook and simmer for a few hours. Then pressed the seeds and peels out through a fine sieve as best I could. And then back on the stove to simmer another 3 hours. I was hoping the simmer process would help to thicken it. And it did. Slightly. I finally ran out of patience at around the 3 hour mark and called it good. The result is a very thin ketchup but with spot on flavor.
Every time Tygh and I go to a restaurant and they offer a ketchup, any ketchup, that is not Heinz, he loves it. So I was really hoping for a nice thick concoction my husband would love.
I’m a bit odd in that I like familiar flavors. I was raised on Heinz ketchup and that’s what I like. Same with maple syrup. I like Golden Griddle or Aunt Jemimah or any other maple syrups from my childhood. My husband prefers pure maple syrup. I wish I did too. I want to.
So, I’m pleasantly surprised at how much I love the flavor of the homemade ketchup. And Tygh seems to like it, too. So, overall, I’m happy. Next year I will invest in a food mill to try to get more of the tomato pulp into the ketchup pan. I was working with a fine colander, really. Most of our kitchen items are packed for the remodel. And I made do as well as I could.
