I’ve posted before about making ketchup. So, fair warning, this is not a recipe post. I’ll refer, as I have in the past, to the excellent Thane Prince cookbook, Jams, Jellies and Chutneys. It’s my go-to book for English style pickles and preserves. By now, I’ve made Thane’s ketchup recipe dozens of times. But I’m still finding out things she didn’t exactly warn me about. Perhaps these are techniques that experienced canners know, but neophytes such as myself would have appreciated these extra tips. So allow me to provide you with a much needed addendum. All respect to Thane, but I think she needed to step back six paces and address the novice. I guess that’s what I’m here for. And lest I scare you off with the unvarnished truth, you will need this recipe. If you are growing tomatoes, you need recipes that will allow you to process maximum amounts of harvest. Nothing demands bags of tomatoes like ketchup. So read on.
But first, did I mention that I think I’ve grown the biggest tomato ever?
This is NOT the kind of tomato you will be using to make ketchup. You must must must use only sauce tomatoes such as Principe Borghese or San Marzano. The little sauce tomatoes have a higher pulp to water ratio. Trust me on this. You are going to be boiling down 8 lbs into approximately 4 half pint jars. You want to start with as little water as possible.
For similar reasons, a Cuisinart is absolutely necessary. Before you start, bear in mind that you will be grinding everything through a food mill.
Oh, and the recipe also won’t make clear to you that everything in this recipe will be reduced and concentrated. So things you don’t want to taste MORE of you’ll want to eliminate. So for instance, only buy or use organic vegetables. You don’t want concentrated pesticides in your ketchup.

And the white bits in the pepper you’ll add: very bitter. Cut that out unless you want concentrated bitterness in your ketchup.
Remember I warned you about that food mill? You’ll be grinding that thing for more than half an hour. Do the initial cooking down of the vegetables for five times longer than Thane tells you to.

You want all those fiberous veggies like the celery and the onion as soft as possible before you try to grind them through the mill.

For the record, tomato skins and seeds are the toughest and most adhesive things known in nature. They’ll get everywhere and you’ll be washing up for hours.
Now comes the second simmering down. You should just laugh at Thane’s suggestion that it will take “about 20 minutes” to get the desired consistency. If you want anything close to ketchup thickness, start blocking out hours.
By this time you will need to be fortified. I recommend Hitching Post Pinot Noir.

It’s rustic, it’s Californian. But it’s not so heavy that you can’t complete the hours of work still ahead of you.
That’s my addendum of those extra tips the canning and preserving books won’t tell you. Now go get Thane Prince’s book. But heed my warnings.
I know this post is about ketchup, but I can’t stop admiring how beautiful Lucy looks? Has she slimmed down? Her photos are just adorable.
And I am envious of your wood floors. This is coming from someone who has nearly 100 year old wood floors. Your kitchen floor is prettier than my parlor. Dang.
Lucy has slimmed down a little and we expect more poundage to drop now that we’re in Sonoma for the week. The wood floors are 100 year old reclaimed wood. But the guys just treated them with Velvit Oil. They won’t look this shiny and good much longer. In fact, this was the only patch without tiny dusty terrier pawprints.
Well, Lucy looks marvelous. Of course, so does young Oscar, but he always looks so trim. Lucy suddenly appears so young and carefree!
I saw a picture today of Jamie and Fiona’s dad. He’s 12 and has picked up quite the spare tire in his dotage. It’s hard to believe that Jamie, who is so tall and lean, is truly the son of this dog.
And we have pawprints on everything. EVERYTHING. I swear there are prints in my bathtub. I’ve obviously given up. I vacuum up enough hair weekly to make an entire litter of terrier puppies, if I had some craft sticks and glue and googly-eyes.
OMG(always wanted to say this)the size of that tomato,did you hand feed it?I’m sure the ketchup is superb,but too much WORK.So glad the beautiful puppies had a bone.
Just making the Thane Prince recipe myself, though I didn’t find that it quite needed cuisinarting before cooking (I made well enough with a fine dice, which seemed to do ok (I used my cuisinart food strainer to make the extraction easier). But, dagnabit, you are darned tooting about the waiting just about practically forever (with regular 15 minute stirs (as Thane recommends to avoid sticking on the bottom)) for the second cook! Thanks for the advice!