Ketchup - from Fresh Garden Tomatoes

We all know Ketchup or Catsup. But this is your kicked up, homemade, garden-grown version. An absolutely delicious way to use up your extra garden tomatoes.

• Ready In: 6 hrs
• Serves: 64
• Yields: 2 Pints

Ingredients

• 6  lbs tomatoes
• 1  tablespoon salt
• 2  garlic cloves
• 1⁄4 cup sugar
• 1⁄4 cup onion, chopped
• 1  cup apple cider vinegar
• 1⁄2 teaspoon mustard seeds
• 1⁄2 teaspoon black peppercorns
• 1⁄2 teaspoon whole allspice
• 1⁄2 teaspoon celery seed
• 1⁄2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1  bay leaf
• 2  whole cloves

Directions

1. Depending on size, halve or quarter your tomatoes. Sauce tomatoes (Roma) are ideal, but any will work. I used a combo of Roma, Beefsteak, and (mostly) Cherry.
2. OPTIONAL: Smoke a tray's worth of the tomatoes. I cold smoked mine for a few hours over hickory. It gave it a subtle but delicious smoke flavor. Again, this is totally optional.
3. Add the tomatoes, salt, garlic, sugar, and onions to a pot and boil for 30 minutes.
4. Cool the mixture until you can send it safely through your food mill. I used the mixer attachment and it worked beautifully. If you don't have a food mill, you can peel and squeeze the tomatoes using the boiling water / ice bath method.
5. Return the now de-seeded and de-skinned tomato sauce to the pot and back onto the stove.
6. Continue to boil the sauce to reduce and thicken.
7. Meanwhile, in another non-reactive pot; heat the apple cider vinegar with all the remaining spice additions. Heat until the spices have infused into the vinegar.
8. Using a fine strainer to leave behind the whole spices, pour the vinegar into the tomato mix. If you don't have a strainer or tea-ball, you can wrap the spices in a cheesecloth satchel.
9. Continue to reduce until you reach the desired ketchup texture. This can take 4-6 hours. I've heard of people using a crock pot for this process.
10. Follow standard canning procedure if you want a shelf-stable product. Otherwise, cool and keep in the fridge.