Homemade Ketchup (GAPS, Paleo, Refined Sugar Free)

 

Ingredients:

12 lbs. fresh tomatoes, quartered (for canned tomatoes, see note)
1 medium onion, diced
1 medium red pepper, diced
1/4 cup celery leaves or chopped celery stalks
1/4 cup of ghee (or butter - optional, but I would highly recommend it!)
1  1/4 cups apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup lemon juice (if you are canning this is essential)
1 Ceylon cinnamon stick, broken up a bit
2 tsp whole cloves
about 7 whole allspice berries
2 garlic chive stems, with flower heads (or 1 clove of garlic - I can't use garlic due to husband's allergy)
1 cup pure honey (You may need more or less - somewhat depends on what kind of honey you have and how strongly it comes through)

1/2 cup date sugar

2-2  1/2 tbsp. herbamare (or sea salt)
1 small can of organic tomato paste

 

Preparation:

Combine tomatoes, onion, bell pepper,and celery in a large stockpot (mine is 9 quarts and it was just enough) Crush the tomatoes slightly with a potato masher to make enough liquid to cover the bottom of the pan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, then reduce heat and simmer, covered, until tomatoes are soft and falling apart, about 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, add the vinegar to a small saucepan. Add the spices and garlic (chive flower heads) and bring to a boil over high heat.
Remove from heat and let stand for about 30 minutes or so. Pour vinegar through a strainer into the tomato mix. Discard spices. Simmer tomatoes, for another 30 minutes.

The lid is off from now on.

In batches, run the tomato mixture through a food mill (fine disk) to remove seeds & skins. Or press through a sieve, or puree in a food processor then sieve.

Return pulp to the stockpot, add tomato puree, lemon juice and ghee and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and boil gently, stirring occasionally, until the volume is reduced by about half, and the texture is about the thickness of a thick tomato sauce. Takes about 3 hours at a gentle simmer. You can turn the heat up higher to shorten the simmer time, but you will need to be close by to stir frequently.

Prepare canner, jars and lids.

Blend tomato pulp with an immersion blender or puree in a food processor/blender. Return to stockpot, add honey, date sugar & salt, and bring to a simmer over medium heat.

Simmer, stirring occasionally - I would really recommend using splatter guard if you have one, at this point!

Just keep simmering away until it is just a little thinner than you want the final product to be, (ketchup will further thicken when cold.)

If you're canning, fill hot jars to ½-inch headspace, wipe rims, affix lids and process in a boiling water bath for about 20 min.

Or you can freeze the ketchup.

 

Notes:

1.) If using canned tomatoes, use 6 x 28 oz. cans and omit the food mill step, as skins have already been removed.
2.) If you're not canning the ketchup (or you are pressure canning it,) you can omit the lemon juice and replace with 1/4 c of ACV. The lemon juice is just to keep the home canning safe.

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The Long Lost Blogger

Wow, it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted here!

It has been BUSY around here! Not that that’s new or different!

Catching you up will be a long and picture rich post, but here we go!

 

On top of the regular scheduled “programming” around our house, I’ve been busy with this:

 

 

My “babies” turned eight years old! (Seriously?! When did that happen?!) And we had a party! And it was an awesome party! And of course there were the cakes!

 

Anna wanted a Lalaloopsy cake, with figures she could keep! So, that was an easy one! Making all the buttons, butterflies and flowers was fun and quite easy - and then I just topped it off with some mini Lalaloopsies!

 

 

 

Max, of course, wanted an Angry Birds cake again, this time with the star wars theme! He wanted to be able to eat everything, so I made everything edible!

 

We also had a bouncy castle, and Daddy was manning the cotton candy machine and lots of friends came and everyone had a lot of fun!

 

 

 

 

And then there is also a lot of this!

 

 

Bumper crops, canning, freezing, prepping, freezing, jam making, drying, freezing,  pie filling making, apple sauce making, jam making, fermenting, you name it and I’ve done a LOT of it this year!

 

And of course, now there is also a whole lot of this

 

 

 

Unfortunately, our latest hard frost took out most of the zucchinis, tomatoes, peppers and egg plants. But a lot of the more cold hardy things have sprung up and are doing great! And since we have generally very mild winters, it’s prime gardening season around here even now!

 

And then there was the purging, because all of that wasn’t quite enough! I got some kind of bug which I like to call “no room left behind”, which basically includes every room, every cupboard, every box/basket, etc sorted through, organized, purged (if applicable) and cleaned out.

I am mostly through the house now (except for my husband’s office - I’m calling that one a lost cause ...) with only a couple more areas left to do!

It’s an ongoing thing really, but it is amazing how much accumulates in a family of hoarders  organizationally challenged people, even when I try to stay on top of it on a regular basis! And it always seems to be such a big deal with the husband and the kids, there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth and all that!
Even though, once we are through it, all of them are quite clear that they feel much better without all their rooms/lives in a hot mess and all cluttered up! Go figure!

 

Anyway, then Thanksgiving happened, with family staying in town for a while and we were in the rather more unique position of also incorporating a little of Hannukah into our Thanksgiving celebration, making it a once in a lifetime Thanksgivukkah! With a variety of allergies running high in the extended family, it was an interesting experience, making all the familiar, expected and traditional goodies, while keeping everyone happy and healthy!

We had gluten-free Rugalach (nuts and honey as well as poppy seed filling,) gluten-free corn casserole, the turkey of course, dairy and gluten-free gravy, dairy-free and regular mashed potatoes, potato cakes with apple sauce, lingon berry and cranberry sauce and speaghetti squash! For dessert with had gluten-free dutch apple pie, marshmallow dreidels, gluten-free chocolate and cookie acorns. Wondering what our dietary restrictions are when we all get together? No dairy, no gluten, no coconut or derivatives, no soy or derivatives, no garlic, no fish, no artificial sweeteners and no red peppers and no beans. Those are the bigger ones, not including the “dislikes” that everyone brings along too!
Anyway, as you can see, we had a feast and everyone was safe and happy!

I have taken a bunch of Thanksgiving photos, but I can’t find them right now, so this will serve as a place holder for me to add them later! It’s not like I don’t have a lot of other photos for you to look at in this post!

 

And now of course we’re racing full steam toward Christmas! It will be the first time that our little family will be just us for Christmas! We have never had that and even though it is unfamiliar, I am really looking forward to a laid-back, nowhere-to-go, nothing-much-to-do, keep-your-pajamas-on-all-day kind of a Christmas!

 

The other thing that’s been taking up my time and passion again, has been art journaling/painting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been doing two art courses (online) in the last few weeks. And I have loved, loved, loved them!
The first one was Tam Laporte’s (aka Willowing) Fabulous Faces class which is just plain awesome! Rarely have I enjoyed a course quite that much, I have to say!

 

 

The second one is a portrait class by Gabrielle DeCesaris on skillshare and it has helped me tremendously in the technical areas and I have had quite a few “AHA” moments in terms of proportions and realistic feature composition!

{In progress}

 

And I think I have left my “can’t do faces right” persona behind now and things are looking up - and a lot more like actual faces now! I still need a lot of practice, but this kind of practice is so much fun, so I’m looking forward to that!

And in that spirit I have also signed up for Lifebook 2014 and I am SO excited for it to start - I can hardly wait!

A whole year of artsy, messy, healing, journaling, learning and expanding goodness is waiting to be explored and I will be part of it! YAY!

 

 

So, yes, that’s the last 3 months or so in a nutshell!

What new things have you been tackling in your life?

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‘tis The Season To Be Canning!

In my kitchen yesterday: 25 lbs. of organic green peppers being sliced, diced, portioned and frozen!

In my kitchen today: Eleven quarts of applesauce in the making!

 

 

In my kitchen tomorrow: 25 lbs. of organic nectarines awaiting processing!

I'm so grateful for the abundance of inexpensive, organic produce this time of year! And since we seem to be staying out of the triple digits now, our own garden will be producing again soon too! Yay!

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Sweet and Sour Zucchini Pickles (LC, GF, SF)

This recipe is a great way to tame the zucchini bounty, share it with friends and just have your zucchini  with a little pep  all year round!

 

 

Ingredients:

4 medium sized Zucchini

1/2 small onion

1/3 cup apple cider vinegar

1/2 cup water

1/3 cup unflavored sugar-free syrup or sugar substitute equivalent

2 cloves of  garlic, thinly sliced

1/2 tsp cumin

1 tsp smoked paprika (or sweet paprika)

1/2 - 1 tsp freshly ground pepper

1 tsp mustard seeds

1/4 tsp sea salt

 

Preparation:

Quarter the zucchini lengthwise and slice off the spongy middle section.  Slice each quarter in half length wise again and then cut 2 inch sticks.

Place in a sauce pan. Finely slice the onion and the garlic. Using a mandolin gets you the most slices, which means you get the most flavor out of less onion/garlic. If you don’t want to spring for a big one, check out your local Asian store. I got this one there for something like $3 and it slices onions and garlic literally paper thin!

 

 

Anyway, place everything in the sauce pan and simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

 

 

Once the zucchini have softened a little, rinse your canning jars if you haven’t already, place the zucchini in them, then ladle the pickling liquid complete with spices over the zucchini right up to the rim of the jar.

Wipe the rims, place on the lids and screw on tight. Turn the jars upside down and let them cool that way.

Once cooled, the lids should be “sucked” in. If there is still give while pushing on the middle of the lid, you didn’t get a seal and those need to be refrigerated and eaten within the next few days.

The other ones can be stored in the jars for several months!

 

 

The whole recipe is 21 g of carbs and 5 g of fiber. So 16 g of net carbs!

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