A Day in the Kitchen

Yesterday I woke up and thought, I fancy cooking today.
So a day in the kitchen for me.

I had lots of tomatoes to use from our veg patch, what can you make with lots of tomatoes!!!

Well Pasta Sauce & Soup came to mind but the freezer is full to bursting so that was a no go, Chutney... But I prefer green tomatoes for chutney and mine were bright red & yellow.

So I had a quick sqizz on the Internet and found a recipe for homemade Ketchup on the River Cottage website, thinking about it now I'm sure I have seen Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall make this on TV.

So I set off on my Ketchup journey,

- 3kg ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped

- 4 onions, sliced (I used the Red variety)

- 1 large red pepper, seeds and white membrane removed, chopped (I used a sweet red pepper)

- 100g soft brown sugar

- 200ml cider vinegar

- ¼ teaspoon dry mustard

- a piece of cinnamon stick

- 1 ½ teaspoons whole allspice - (I didn't have this so decided to a dried Chili flakes)

- 1 ½ teaspoons whole cloves

- 1 ½ teaspoons ground mace - ( I didn't have this either so just left it out)

- 1 ½ teaspoons celery seeds

- 1 ½ teaspoons black peppercorns

- 1 bay leaf - 1 garlic clove, peeled and bruised

- paprika to taste (optional)

- salt

The process is quite simple

Combine the tomatoes, onions and red pepper in a large, heavy pan over a medium heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until very soft.

Push through a coarse-meshed sieve (I pushed it through 3 times to get the most out of the pulp) and return to the pot with the sugar, vinegar and mustard.

Tie the cinnamon, allspice, cloves, mace, celery seeds, black peppercorns, bay leaf and garlic in a square of muslin and drop it into the stew.

Bring the mixture to the boil, then reduce to a slow simmer.

Cook, allowing it to bubble gently, stirring often and carefully, for 20-40 minutes.

(I actually let mine simmer for about 2 hours to get the required consistency, I must have had really juicy tomatoes) The time taken will depend on how juicy your tomatoes are but in any case continue to cook until it is thick and pulpy.
Taste a couple of times while it is cooking and remove the spice bag if the flavour becomes too strong.
Season to taste with salt and paprika, if using, then leave to cool.

Pour the ketchup through a funnel into suitable bottles and seal.

Stored in the fridge, this ketchup will keep for a month. If you bottle it in sterilised jars while still warn, it should keep for a year.
Recipe Source River Cottage.net

I bottled up 4 tall thin bottles, as you can see in the photos ready to store for the winter.

I am really pleased with the result, It does have a bit of a Kick to it where I added the Chili but I like that, It makes different not the norm.

So Ketchup making over, Gav requested an Apple & Blackberry Lattice that he had seen being made on Something for the Weekend.

These were really easy to make, I did cheat with the puff pastry!! but I think you have to when it comes to Puff as it is really tricky to make.

Gav had his for pudding with Ice cream and I saved mine (not sure what came over me) for breakfast this morning, made my Monday morning much better!!

I have become a bit addicted to Crochet so my blogging has been a bit neglected the past few days, but I think I have the hang of it and I am 5 squares out on my blanket. Thank heavens for online video tutorials is all I can say.

So have a lovely week, and don't forget it's national Cupcake week this week.

Teresa from TCake has a fab Cupcake Giveaway planned so hop over and take a look.

Love Sophie xxxx