I had homemade catsup on a burger here in St. Louis and I loved it! So tomatoey, not too sweet with enough spice and vinegar to make it interesting. So I thought I would make some with the surplus tomato crop we had.
I picked 4 heirlooms, 4 beefsteak, 40 plum and 10 cherry tomatoes and proceed to skin them. I like the hot water bath/ice soak to skin tomatoes. That job was done in less than five minutes. Truly easy with the hot water bath.
I pinch the green stem tops off and then pinch the bottom of the plum tomatoes and the skin comes off in one piece. It's kinda fun!!
This is about half of the tomatoes I used. You can see the different sizes, but I did decide not to use the cherry tomatoes.
I placed the tomatoes and 1/2 of a large onion chopped into a crock pot and cooked for an hour on high. Then I used my hand blender to puree the tomatoes and onions in the crock pot. I made a bag of whole allspice, celery seed, cinnamon stick, bay leaf, and cloves and placed it in the crockpot. I added 2/3 c apple cider vinegar, 1/4 c sugar, 1/4 c maple syrup, and 2 t of salt. I cooked the tomatoes all night on high, without the lid.
In the morning the tomatoes were reduced by half. I took out the spice bag and poured the tomatoes into a pot and cooked down to the right consistency. I got a clean jar and filled it with my catsup. Yep, that's right. ONE JAR. This stuff better be heavenly.
Even though I got only one jar, it was better than wasting half of the tomatoes. I am sure we'll love the catsup and even though I don't plan to do it again, it was fun to make it!
