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| Mamo's Handwritten Recipe That Her Mom Used |
Mamo's Ketchup was always a staple in our home growing up. Mamo was my Grandma, she lived next door on our farm. Before she made it, her mom made it, Big Mamo. I was there as much as I was at my own house. Every summer she made ketchup and it smelled wonderful when she cooked it. The flavor was nothing like Heinz's version but it was super yummy in a totally different way.
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| My Aunt's Handwritten Recipe That Mamo Actually Used After Modifying Her Mom's (They Are Nothing Alike) |
This year since I am now living back in my home town, I was able to help with the ketchup making tradition. My dad is now the ring leader and was teaching me how to do it. Many of you asked for the recipe but there's more to it than just the recipe, it's a whole process. Here it goes...
I guess the first step is to plant a bunch of tomatoes, green peppers and onions. I guess you if you don't garden, you could buy all of those ingredients but what's the fun in that?
Wash and core your tomatoes either peeling first or not, that is your preference. Cut them in quarters or so and toss them all in a big cooking pot. Cut up your peppers and onions and toss them in too.
Cook this mixture for about an hour at a heavy simmer. You need the peppers and onions to be soft and for all the flavors to mix together. Do not add water! This will make lots of juice but stir occasionally to prevent burning.
After that's all cooked, you need to separate the juice from the solids. This endeavor not only makes ketchup but you will have juice to can as well. You will also have a very messy kitchen and lot of dishes to wash but that's just a little side bonus.
After you drain your juice off and smash your solids to a nice thick pulp (that is the hardest part and no, I don't have a good recommendation on how to go about it), it's time to cook. Grab the recipe and add in your seasonings. Put it on the stove and let it cook at a heavy simmer/low boil. Stir ofter, do not let it burn!
This is when it gets good. This is how you know you're making Mamo's Ketchup. When I got off the school bus as a child I knew when it was ketchup making time because I could smell it cooking all they way to the road. So good! You really have no idea until you have smelled it. It's amazing. This is the step in the process when I picked Reed up from school and before he got the door to the house open he said "Wow, what smells so good?" It made me so happy to hear him say that. He knows a good thing when he smells it.
You need to cook it for about 1-2 hours. It just depends on how much liquid was still in the thick when you start cooking. If you did a good job and it was pretty thick to start with, you may only need to cook an hour. If it's pretty thin, you may need to cook longer. This is also when you can can all that wonderful juice you separated out.
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| We Spiced This Juice Up A Bit - Can Anyone Say Bloody Mary? |
After it's cooked and cooled down a bit, bottle it up. Any glass bottle will work as long as it's not a new fancy twist off type of bottle. It has to be a good 'ol pop off type bottle. We keep and reuse our bottles from year to year. Can you tell? Hard telling how old some of these bottles are. Beer bottles, coke bottles...we don't care what they once were. All we know is now they are ketchup bottles.
Find yourself a cute boy to help his Grandpa GG operate the bottle capper and you are good to go.
My favorite thing to put this ketchup on is a big old bacon sandwich. Just bacon, ketchup and bread. Perfect sandwich.
And as an after note, most of these photos were taken with my phone because I forgot my good camera, bummer.
