I'm taking the recipe from Sherri Brooks Vinton's great little book Put 'em Up - a comprehensive home preserving guide for the Creative cook. It is an interesting cookbook chock full of great information about canning, drying and other food preservation methods. I highly recommend that if you've never canned before, get a good reference book like this one to guide you through the steps. It is important to follow recipes when canning so you can get your balance of acidity or sugar right for food safety.
As I said, all the ingredients are easy to obtain and you may have most on the shelves already. It also helps to either grow the produce or get the product fresh when in season from your favorite farmer at the farmers market. We've just had a frost - so up until now, the peppers and tomatoes have been plentiful and very reasonably priced. You really don't make this ketchup to save money, you make it so you can savor the taste.
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Here's the recipe:
Roasted Pepper Ketchup
Makes about 4 cups
Ingredients:
2 pounds tomatoes
2 pounds red bell peppers ( I used a mix of red and golden)
1 medium onion, chopped
1 cup cider vinegar
1 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon salt
2 garlic cloves, sliced
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
Blanch the tomatoes in boiling water and remove to an cold water or iced bath. The skins should come off easily. Roast the peppers and char the skins. After charring put in a paper bag or a bowl with plastic wrap to steam the skins. Remove the skins, seeds and large ribs.
(I know these steps seem like a lot of work and trouble. But I did this in stages. Roasting peppers one day and processing the tomatoes another. Don't feel you have to go on a marathon session doing all these steps.)
Combine the chopped tomato pulp, rough cut peppers, onions, vinegar, brown sugar, salt and spices in a large non-reactive pot and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat after about 10 minutes or when the onions become translucent. Once the ingredients have come together and softened, turn off the heat and puree the mixture with a stick blender or in a couple of batches in a food processor. (I think the stick blender is the neatest tool I have in the kitchen for making sauces, smoothies and soups and highly recommend it!) Be careful because this mixture is hot and can scorch you fast.
Return the puree to the pot and then to the heat and simmer until the mixture reduces to make a thick sauce - could be an hour or two. Remove from the heat.
At this point you can put your sauce in a refrigerator container and put in the fridge for up to 3 weeks, or you can preserve the ketchup in jars by the boiling water bath method. I'm not going to give you a primer here on processing but the time needed to put up these 4 oz. or 1/2 pint jars is 15 minutes and 5 minutes rest period in the hot water. Remove jars to a towel and set aside for 24 hours. Check the seals and then store up to a year.
