Ketchup and Pickled Peppers.

Earlier this summer, when I first started seeing tomatoes growing on the vine, I started researching ideas about how to can them. I knew I wanted to make sauce with a lot of them, because I use a lot of tomato sauce. I also knew I wanted to can some whole, to chop up later and use in meals and on pizzas. I also came across a recipe for ketchup and I became intrigued. I went to the refrigerator to dig out my bottle of Heinz and was appalled at what I saw on the ingredient list. High fructose corn syrup was the second ingredient on the list. ugh. That stuff is everywhere.

I decided to go ahead and try to make ketchup. Basically it's just a mixture of tomato sauce, onion, and red bell pepper all pureed together. Then you add a little bit of apple cider vinegar, a little bit of brown sugar, and you put some spices in cheesecloth and let it cook down for a long time. It tasted awesome in the pot but I haven't tried it cold yet, that will be the true test. I know it won't be the same as the store brands we love, but I also know it will be better for us and I'm sure we'll adjust to any mild taste differences. I'll let you know how it goes once we finish the rest of the store bought ketchup and switch over to the homemade.

Don't worry, after the cherry bombs absorbed all the vinegar (I had poked holes in them) I added more and re-processed. 

If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, how many pickled peppers, did Peter Piper pick?

You can't actually pick peppers that have already been pickled. Sneaky sneaky, Peter Piper. Since peppers don't come pre-pickled I took a little time to pickle some a few weekends ago. We've got cherry bombs, some little green guys from the neighbor's garden, and a couple jars of jalapenos. They're just pickled in a basic vinegar mixture, ready to go for future use in salsas or whatever meal needs a little extra flavor.

I will be finishing up pepper pickling this week as we ended up with more peppers when we prepared for the frost.