In Which I Say Never Again to Making Ketchup

I knew this. I knew this. I'd made a batch of homemade tomato ketchup years and years ago in Spokane and learned just how very, very long it takes to cook down. (Why specify "tomato" ketchup? Because, as I learned from The Joy of Cooking, whether you call it ketchup or catsup it's any savory smooth vegetable sauce. Mushroom Ketchup? It's a thing.)

But oops, I did it again. Had a lot of green tomatoes and remembered last year's idea of making green tomato ketchup. I'd even rounded up the recipes. And I still have plenty of my beloved green tomato chutney on hand, supplemented by some green tomato/tomatillo chutney that's a bit sharper, but still good. 

Last year I tried making the dehydrated seasoned green tomatoes linked in that same post. Blech. And we'd been saying we'd like to have ketchup on hand without ever actually getting around to buying any. I can fix this!

Sunday I headed out to the yard to pick the many, many green tomatoes left and do a bit of cleanup of the raised beds. Since I started my seed snail 'speriment a bit late, the Mortgage Lifter heirloom tomatoes hadn't had enough time to ripen. They're huge and beautiful and I'll be starting those seeds earlier in 2026 so I get the payoff in ripe red tomatoes.

So, yeah, around 24 pounds or so of green tomatoes.

Brilliant idea: Make batches of three different recipes in a head to head taste contest, then use the last batch of tomatoes to double down on the winner.

Dear Reader, this is not how I'll ever spend another Sunday.

I got through two of the three recipes. Neither of them makes my heart beat faster. One was the winner with Sweet Hubs. Fortunately, that was the batch that had more tomatoes based on the recipe's proportions. I added more sugar to both recipes. Neither of them is a giftable product, which is my yardstick for success.

And the labor! So many steps. So many. The two recipes used two different approaches, too.

Mamta's Kitchen Green Tomato Ketchup: Cook the tomatoes, onions and garlic until soft, which didn't take nearly as long as the four-hour Creative Canning recipe. Put through a food mill, then through a sieve to get the smooth sauce consistency, then cook with spices, vinegar and sugar. This batch had a smaller quantity of tomatoes. I doubled it to 2 kg and was able to fit into my deep saucepan. I normally wouldn't double an untried recipe but I had so, so many green tomatoes and the spice mix sounded really good. Garam masala, mustard, and more.

The recipe indicated that 1 kg of tomatoes would produce around 2 liters of sauce before adding spices etc. My tomatoes must have been super juicy, as I started with 2 kg and ended up with not quite that 2-liter mark. I seasoned based on volume produced, not volume I started with. I added more spices after tasting; mine are getting old, I know.

Yield from all of that: 2 half-pints, 1 quarter-pint.

Creative Canning Green Tomato Ketchup: Cook everything everywhere all at once for a long, long time (four hours), stirring frequently so it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan. This started with 6 pounds of tomatoes so I used my Dutch oven. I'd already done the food mill + sieve steps for the Mamta recipe. This one called for pureeing ingredients in a blender, then putting it through a sieve. Much easier than the (manual) food mill process. I'd started with more tomatoes so it isn't a completely parallel comparison but I know I threw a lot more tomato skins/seeds/solids into the compost with Mamta's recipe than with this one.

This one was sweetened with honey. I added another cup of sugar after tasting (one-half cup at a time). It came out the flavor winner and was a much brighter green color.

Yield: 6 half-pints.

If I were making either of these again, which I will not be doing, I'd use the blender + sieve technique from Creative Canning. I might use the cooking approach from Mamta's because it was so much faster, but then again that might be a function of the tomato quantity. 

I couldn't tell you whether having the seasonings in from the beginning can be credited with the better flavor of the Creative Canning approach. I'd actually think it would be the opposite because seasonings added too early can disappear a bit. Mamta's recipe made the point that sugar and salt both darken the end result, hence adding them in at the end, but the spice profile with several brown spices and blends meant hers was the darker brown sauce anyway.

Another lesson learned: I had purchased cute little 8-ounce stout bottles from Fillmore Container, planning to bottle whatever sauces I might make this year as a change of pace from chutney. But the ketchup was thick enough that it wouldn't pour easily out of the bottle and I realized it would be far easier to can it in my standard jars. I'll use those bottles for something runnier. 

In a side note, I couldn't find instructions for headspace with that smaller mouth, which worries me. Need enough air to suck out for the vacuum, not something that creates so much pressure the bottle gives way in the kettle. The functional headspace with a much smaller circumference is obviously less so I think I need to do the geometry calculation to figure out how much headspace yields the equivalent air volume of a 1/4" headspace on a regular mouth jar. I'll keep poking around to find that or do the math before I try making some other sauce.

I did the prep for the third batch while the others were cooking down. I'd always known it would have to wait, given the amount of time it takes ketchup to cook down. So I whirled the tomatoes and onions in the food processor and stuck them in the fridge.

Know what I'm going to make with them instead of the third ketchup recipe?

Chutney.

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When Life Hands You a Defrosted Freezer, Make Jam

I spent much of last September in a canning frenzy. This September wasn't. I went on a two-week vacation starting Sept. 27 and needed to get things done to be ready for heading out of the country to England.

October? Also not a canning month. That two-week vacation went into mid-October, then we had a family weekend trip (which involved giving away jars of tasty treats), then I had a business trip.

Oct. 31, however, brought me a nasty surprise that meant November would start with a lot of canning. Went out to the freezer and discovered the door was open a tiny, tiny bit. Just wide enough for long enough to have defrosted every last thing, including all that produce I'd prepped and frozen earlier in the year. My visions of cozy winter weekends making a batch of this and a batch of that when the mood struck turned into a salvage situation with the clock ticking.

I made some fast decisions about how much I could get through in a weekend and put those thawed bags into the refrigerator. I figured since the apples and pears were mostly destined for apple-pear butter they could stand the freeze/thaw/freeze cycle a bit better than berries and tomatoes, so they stayed in the freezer to go back into their cold slumbers.

Saturday production:

Blackberry Jelly 15 quarter-pints, 6 half-pints. This no-pectin recipe jelled like a dream. I usually make jams but I had two big bags of blackberries and I still have seedless blackberry jam from last year, or was it the year before? The pulp and seeds will go into fruit leather with some plums a neighbor gave me.

Tayberry Jam: 16 quarter-pints, 8 half-pints. Pruning those bushes really paid off in production! The tried and true Chef Heidi Fink recipe I used last year. My experience has been that it takes much longer to get to the jammy stage than her recipe suggests. I use two tests: Does it run together in a sheeting action when I dip some up in a spoon, and does it hold together and slide down a plate from the freezer without a lot of juice separating out when I tilt the plate? I picked the latter tip up from a recipe somewhere and really like it, as it doesn't involve burning my finger in the jam.

Sour Cherry Amaretto Jam: 5 quarter-pints, 2 half-pints. The cherries are courtesy of a Buy Nothing you-pick offer. I didn't get a lot, around 3.25 pounds. I used the no-pectin sour cherry jam recipe from Sourdough Brandon, enhanced by the amaretto suggestion in the recipe from DishNTheKitchen. Honestly, a tiny bit disappointed on this one. The sour tasted more of the lemon juice than the cherries to my tastebuds.

"Razzbuzzy" Jam: 7 quarter-pints. Going with the "let's add liqueur to jam" theme, I made the Classic Raspberry Jam recipe from Creative Canning. I only had about 2.5 cups of raspberries. I used a 1:1 fruit:sugar ratio per the recipe and added 3 T. raspberry liqueuer. Not all the alcohol cooks out, or so I've read, but this isn't really enough for a buzz. It's just a fun word.

Spiced Blueberry Jam: 7 quarter-pints. Another tiny batch. I had just about 1.5 pounds, perfect for one of the Food in Jars small-batch recipes.

I'll cover Sunday production and beyond in another post. 

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My Circular Economy of Apples

Every apple recipe I made last year—and that's a long list—started out with fresh apples to which I applied some labor. Peel, yes or no depending on the recipe. Core, yes or no depending on the recipe. Slice, dice, or shred. Cook with spices. Discard something.

Bear in mind that my parents grew up during the Depression and raised me to be thrifty. I minimize my food waste as much as possible. What there is of it goes into the garden beds in the central composting square. I use the keyhole gardening technique, AKA dump food scraps into a space in the middle of the raised bed, let Mother Nature and Father Time do their thing. (My raised beds are rectangular, built by my Sweet Hubs from a kit, rather than the round shape most often illustrated. Compost happens either way.)

But why compost before you've gotten every last possible bit of use? Although there's such a thing as taking it a bit too far. I present my lessons learned for your entertainment and possible benefit.

A typical two-day cycle starts with the apples I glean from various roadside trees and pick up when a neighbor leaves a bag by the curb. (So really, it's a three-day cycle. Day one, collect apples.)


First, I use my handy-dandy apple corer without peeling and prep 8 lbs. of sliced apples to freeze for later use in apple-pear butter, or possibly this Apple Caramel Sauce from Food in Jars, which sounds scrumptious (recipe can be made using other fruits too!).

Put all the cores in a bag. Plenty of apple-ness left there that can be rendered into juice.

Use the apple corer with the peeler setting to slice another 4 pounds of apples, then dice those up to macerate overnight with sugar for Apple Cardamom Rosewater Jam. Throw the peels in the bag with the core; they carry pectin that will help the juice jell.


Simmer those cores and peels until soft with some ginger in preparation for Apple Ginger Jelly. I made this one last year and it's going on annual repeat. Set that up to drain overnight.

The next morning, discover that the apple juice is maybe a trifle bland. I really should have gotten fresh gingerroot, not just used the ginger paste from a tube that I had in the fridge. Okay, I can fix this, I still have pounds and pounds of apples. Quarter a bunch of the smaller ones and throw into the strained juice so it will reduce and pick up more appley goodness. Add more ginger paste. (Really should have biked to the store.) 

Update on Apple Ginger Jelly: Sweet Hubs ended up running to the store and getting gingerroot. Sliced that up (the recipe calls for 3 oz. to go with 2 lbs. apples, and I had 3 lbs.) and simmered it in with the apples. Makes all the difference!

In the meantime, use my food mill to smoosh the cores and peels and squeeze out every bit of apple pulp I can. I figured I'd throw that into the future apple-pear butter, but hey, that looks a lot like applesauce! Granted, these apples have already given up some (most) of their flavor. Here comes the Maple Applesauce recipe from Food in Jars to the rescue, with its cinnamon sticks and maple for some extra flavor oomph.

But wait, those apples I added to the juice are also going to be nice and soft. Slow my roll on the applesauce plan until I can get those smooshed up too. Ideally they would drain for 6-8 hours per the recipe, but y'know, it's okay if some of the juice goes into the applesauce.

After tasting the apple mush, though, I decide it really has lost almost all its flavor. Even the addition of the apples that had more flesh and a tablespoon of lemon juice didn't really fix it.

At that point I have a few options: Blend up some blackberries with the bland applesauce and make fruit leather. Freeze this stuff in a muffin tin, which makes handy half-cup quantities, and save it to bake into future muffins and breads, recognizing they'll need more spice. Bake a batch of muffins or bread right now, for that matter. Or head into a fresh batch of applesauce with whole apples that I can mix this into and resist the urge to restart this whole circular economy again.

I do have an entire bike pannier full of apples still to process.... 

Clearly Indian Apple Chutney lies ahead. I made that last year and it tasted fantastic with some Cougar Gold aged white cheddar on a cracker. But not today. Chutney takes a while to cook and I have apple mush to deal with. That muffin tin of apple mush for the freezer sounds like the easiest way to go. I just have to label it with honesty: "Bland Applesauce 2025".

Recipes in this post

  • Apple Caramel Sauce
  • Apple Cardamom Rosewater Jam: Flavor notes to read before you make this! 
    • She says to cook 40 minutes minimum, longer for deeper color. I probably cooked twice as long to get it to a consistency that looked like jam and yet still had some apple bits. Cook for the texture you want in your jam.
    • She calls for 5 cardamom pods. I used 8 pods and it was so subtle I couldn't taste it, but my pods were a bit old. Ended up adding something like 3/4 t. ground cardamom. Definitely a taste and adjust seasoning.
    • She calls for 1 T. rosewater or "a splash". I appreciate subtle rosewater, but too much and it will taste like hand lotion for me. I started with 1/2 t., stirred in, let it cook a minute, tasted. Did this until I was at 1-1/2 t. rosewater, so half what she called for. Most definitely a taste and adjust seasoning.
  • Apple Ginger Jelly: I didn't have fresh ginger root on hand (gasp!) so I used the ginger paste in a tube I find so, so handy. That really didn't cut it and I had to do make some amendments (add more apples and cook down more juice with gingerroot). Get fresh gingerroot.
  • Maple Applesauce
  • Indian Apple Chutney
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Making Taybarb: Tayberry Rhubarb Jam Recipe

In last year's "canstravaganza" I made strawberry rhubarb jam, courtesy of the abundance in my garden, along with raspberry jam and tayberry jam. I pruned the tayberry and raspberry bushes for the first time this winter and they rewarded me with an explosion of berries this summer. Since I could see that coming, I ate the strawberries fresh as I picked each day's batch and stashed rhubarb and the berries for a combination to be decided later.

Tayberries have a wonderful floral sweetness that really comes out when they're cooked. I thought that would balance the rhubarb well. I did a bit of exploring for sample recipes involving tayberries and rhubarb and couldn't find one with that exact combination. Time to develop my own, with my usual research on fruit:sugar ratios and other elements. Since tayberries are a cross between blackberries and raspberries I started with recipes for blackberries, then looked at other berry/rhubarb and tayberry/something combinations, bearing in mind that rhubarb is tart and other berries vary in sweetness. Food in Jars, my go-to, commented that a 1:1 ratio could work fine in a strawberry rhubarb recipe.

I hoped to avoid using pectin so the jam wouldn't end up too solid and jelled. I've overshot before on this and I want spreadable jam, not rubberized fruit you can stand a spoon in. I've also had trouble reaching the jelling temperature at times and have added a bit of pectin late in the process with success. According to one recipe I read blackberries have more pectin than their red cousins. Tayberries are purple when they're ripe so I'm treating them like blackberries.

Photo from above looking down into a tall metal pot with red jam cooking in it. A wooden-handled red rubber scraper sits in the pot.

My sources:

  • Low-Sugar Blackberry Rhubarb Jam with low-sugar pectin, Food in Jars. Blackberries:rhubarb 1.5:1 by weight. Fruit:sugar not provided in consistent measurements; 2.5 pounds fruit:1.5 cups sugar.
  • Blueberry Rhubarb Jam with pectin, Food in Jars: Blueberries:rhubarb:sugar 1:1:1 by weight.
  • Tayberry Lemon Jam, no pectin, Anchored Baking: Tayberries:sugar 2:1. 
    • This one is worth reading for its great photo series illustrating the various stages of jam testing with a chilled plate. It takes a different approach than the usual "run your finger through, look for the wrinkle" technique. Instead you put the jam on the plate, chill it in the freezer for four minutes, and observe what it does when you tilt the plate up. If the jam stays as a blob and slides down the plate without a bunch of juice separating out, it's jam.
  • Tayberry Jam, Little Berry Blog, no pectin: 2.25 lbs. tayberries:2.5 c. sugar
  • Tayberry Jam, Chef Heidi Fink, no pectin: 5 c. tayberries:3.5-4 c. sugar
  • Tayberry Raspberry Refrigerator Jam (no pectin), Jam Blog: Ratio of raspberries to tayberries was strictly a function of how many they were able to pick. Berry:sugar ratio 2:1 by weight
  • Strawberry Rhubarb Jam with pectin, Food in Jars: Berry:rhubarb ratio 2:1. Fruit:sugar ratio also 2:1. Measurements by volume, not by weight.
    • From a mention of vanilla in this Food in Jars post and the next one listed I'm taking away the idea to include a teaspoon of vanilla bean paste for every 6 c. total fruit.
  • Sweet Cherry Rhubarb Jam with pectin, Food in Jars. Cherries:rhubarb 3:2 by weight. Fruit:sugar 5 lbs:3 cups, or an estimated volume comparison of 14:3 cups.
  • Small Batch Vanilla Rhubarb Jam with pectin, Food in Jars: 1.25 lbs. rhubarb:1 c. sugar
  • Rhubarb Hibiscus Jam, with pectin, Food in Jars. 2.25 lbs:2 c. sugar

With all this in mind(ish), I settled on 1.5:1 tayberries:rhubarb as a good ratio for the fruit, and 2:1 fruit:sugar as a starting point for the sugar. The jam is really delicious although the rhubarb tartness doesn't show up the way I thought it would. Tayberries are pretty powerful; next time I'd make it a 1:1 ratio, maybe even 1:1.5.

I have a lot of tayberries on hand. Even after making this I'll be doing something else with them. Hence the large quantities here, which I split across two pots. Many jam recipes tell you not to double the recipe in one pot because it will take so much longer to cook down. They're right, it does, and I've cooked various too-large quantities of chutneys and jams and paid the price in time. 

Feel free to reduce these quantities! This is geared around how much rhubarb I had on hand.

Several of the recipes call for lemon, often expressed as the juice and zest of one lemon. I don't always have fresh lemons on hand; I'm using 3 T. bottled lemon juice to stand in for a single fresh lemon zest + juice. This gives a boost to the pectin levels without adding commercial pectin, which I prefer not to use.

Tayberry Rhubarb (Taybarb) Jam

Prep 
  • Macerate the fruit overnight if you want to. (Notes* at end of recipe)
  • Get your hot-water bath canning setup together. This blog isn't your home for full canning safety information. Consult the National Center for Home Food Preservation for detailed instructions.
  • Put a small plate in the freezer to get cold for the wrinkle test you'll use to check jam readiness for canning.
Ingredients

  • Rhubarb: 2.6 lbs, a hair over 8 cups, diced fine
  • Tayberries*: 3.75 lbs., 12 cups. Fresh or frozen both work. Other berry varieties also good here!
  • Sugar: 7.5-10 cups (taste and adjust based on berry sweetness; if you picked your tayberries when they were red, not dark purple, they weren't fully ripe and will be more tart)
  • Lemon juice: 1/2 c. (1/4 c. per 10 cups of fruit)
  • Vanilla bean paste (optional): 2-3 t.

Yield: 8 half-pints, 9 quarter-pints

Cooking instructions

Gently mix the rhubarb, berries, sugar, and vanilla bean paste if you're using that together. 

Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring regularly. Turn down to medium heat.

Add the lemon juice (or juice/zest if you're using that).

Cook, stirring regularly, until the fruit softens, reduces, and breaks down to a jammy consistency. Be sure to stir clear to the bottom. I use a rubber scraper to be sure I'm getting everything up, especially as it starts to thicken and stick more. 

Depending on whether you start with fresh or frozen fruit this could take 20 minutes or so up to 30-45. If it spits at you, which hot fruit can do, reduce the heat slightly. The rhubarb should more or less dissolve and the liquid thicken.

As the fruit softens use a potato masher or the back of a wooden spoon or rubber scraper to break up bigger chunks. If you want a smooth jam, you might very carefully use an immersion blender. I'd protect myself with a lid or towel covering the pot if I went this route to avoid getting splattered with boiling jam. I didn't do this and my jam was a nice spreadable consistency.

Continue cooking until it reaches 220 degrees or passes the freezer plate test. I can generally get my jam a bit north of 200 and then find it's jammy enough to pass the freezer test and sets up just fine, not rubberized.

Ladle into clean, sterilized canning jars, wipe the rims with a clean damp paper towel or cloth, put on the lids to fingertip tight. Put in the canning kettle, bring to a full boil, and process for 10 minutes.

About the foam

For the prettiest jam, recipes tell you to gently skim off the foam that forms on top. I chase it to the edge, trying not to pick up any bits of fruit, and put it into a small jar that then gives me foamy jelly—delicious! Not something I'd give as a gift but I pop it into the fridge and enjoy it. I've also completely skipped this step and stirred the foam into the jam as it cooks. It does end up rising to the top when I put the cooked jam into the jars. You could skim at that step too, I suppose, to preserve your culinary esthetics reputation. This time around I did a decent job of skimming; image below is a "before".


Photo from above looking into a white enamel-lined pot with red jam cooking in it. A wooden-handled scraper sits in the jam, which has pinkish foam on it in some places.

Note on jars and lids

One of my most satisfying discoveries last year was the Fillmore one-piece canning lids with the buttons. They seal with a very satisfying pop within minutes of coming out of the hot-water bath, sometimes within seconds. These make my jars look nicer as a gift item, since the recipient gets a very reusable jar/lid combo. This, of course, means it's possible fewer of my jars make their way back to me. I figure the canning-jar economy is a pay-it-forward setup and don't worry about it.

Close-up photo of half-pint and quarter-pint glass jars with gold lids, sitting on a red towel.
I discovered these thanks to a Food in Jars post on canning with one-piece lids. I have lots of rings left and I'm using those on non-jam products like pickles, applesauce, and salsa that I can in pint or quart jars. The Superb brand lids Fillmore also sells are very high quality and also have a solid pop.

I also really like the Fillmore square-shouldered half-pint jars and their smooth-sided quarter-pint jars, all made in the US. The quilted ones by other jar manufacturers are pretty but I have a hard time getting the dissolvable Avery labels I use to stick if the size goes beyond the little smooth oval onto the quilted surface.


*Optional added steps

You can do one or the other of these but not both, since you wouldn't want to lose sugar in the process of squishing berries through a sieve. I didn't do either and it turned out fine.

Maceration: Mix the sugar into the tayberries (and rhubarb too, if you want) and let them sit for several hours or overnight. This will release the juices. Don't discard the juice! You want that tasty liquid to cook into the jam as it cooks down. The maceration step speeds up the cooking time a bit.

Seedless option: Another step I skipped that you could add if it's your preference: Gently cook the tayberries alone for a bit to loosen them up, then squish them through a fine sieve with the back of a soup ladle to remove the majority of the seeds. Tayberries are a blackberry cross and their parent's seediness does show up in the jam.

Why the sieve and spoon method: I've tried a food mill; I don't have plates fine enough to get the seeds out. I've tried a KitchenAid seed removal attachment. Himalayan blackberry seeds backed up and eventually blew the attachment right off the front of the mixer. I'm just lucky I wasn't standing in front of it at the time. It blew with a sound like a rocket going off and likely could have taken an eye out, or at least done some serious damage.

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