Catch Up!

So...'A family of three tomatoes were walking downtown one day when the little baby tomato started lagging behind. The big father tomato walks back to the baby tomato, stomps on her, squashing her into a red paste, and says, "Ketchup!" ...  Eh, corny, yes, but It's the joke that came to mind when I decided to write this blog, so, you get the pleasure of reading it because yes, I love to share corny jokes.

Catsup vs Ketchup, I'm a nerd and like to research these things therefore you too may benefit from my research because, Here you are reading my blog lol.  First of all this popular condiment was developed in during the Spanish-American war and Theodore Roosevelt discovered that it prevented Scurvy as well as it being the right consistency for Axle Grease...So, the Axles were well greased and the infantry men would fall behind so the drivers of the artillery carts would call out "catch up, catch up".  Well, at the same time, when the men would stop for the night the cats would lick at the axle grease and an unidentified artilary soldier wrote home saying, "You should see the local cats sup on our caisson grease".  And there you have it... Learn something new Every day. 

I made Ketchup today.  Samoans LOVE Catsup on EVERYTHING.  I myself have gotten away from it but yes I was one that used to use Ketchup on almost Everything.  And today I made my own Catsup from Scratch and it's Yummy.  Also Chef Frerichs brought in Jars for us to put our Ketchup in, yay us ... So... Here is the Recipe.  Do enjoy.  It's so simple and it tastes so much better than the store bought Heins or Hunts.  FYI btw, The "Unidentified" soldier was actually Mike Hunt who started Hunts and called it Catsup, Aaaand, William K. Heinz was an infantry Officer of the Spanish American war who heard the men cry out "Catch Up" and yes, he is "the" Heinz of Heinz 57.  And the tale continues but eh, you can read it on your own, I'm running out of time.

So, here is the recipe to...Tomato Jam lol.

20oz   Fine Chopped tomatoes
5oz     Sugar
3oz     Red wine vinegar
1/4 tsp   Cinnamon
Pinch    Cround cloves
3/4 tsp   Kosher Salt
3/4 tsp   Red Chili flakes

Put all the ingredients into a sauce pan and bring to a boil, then reduce it to a simmer.  Reduce it til it's a sticky, jammy mess.  (Yes, that's what it says on the recipe lol...) This will take between 1- 1 1/2 hours depending on how high you keep your heat... Stir regularly because this can easily burn... 

There you have it.  Now what I did was used and emulsion blender to smooth out the chunks of tomatoes.  Then I put it in my cute lil jar.  During our little round table discussion at the end of class, Chef wanted to see my little jar of Catketchup and as he looked at it he said it was "beautiful" lol I did have a nice deep red color to it... Oh,  What I did was I added a dab of Molasses to my concoction.  That's not in the recipe.  =}  and I used Canned tomatoes because they are picked at Peak season and are sweeter than the fresh tomatoes that you can buy at the market that are usually not quite ripe yet...


And that is my blip for my BFFs today.   Enjoy.