Well, yesterday I got my ketchup made. It smelled so spicy in our home all day. Some ladies came to my door yesterday to invite me to their church. We chatted a while at the door and the one young lady says, "What are you cooking? It smells delicious."
I had my apron on. I said, "Oh, it's just homemade ketchup," and in a few minutes Papa came to the door and told about my ketchup. When I make ketchup, he tells everyone.
Last night, when he got home from work, I had made a baked egg omelet for him for supper. He says, "Well, is the ketchup done yet?" I said it was. And he asked me to put this on his omelet. I don't have it canned up yet -- it's still in the pan. But I just dipped it out with a spoon over Papa's eggs. He loves it and had several helpings. I know he went to work and bragged about it last night.
I bake the ketchup in the oven all day to let it thicken at about 200 degrees. Then I just let it sit in the pan overnight. Now, later this morning, I will put it in jars and water bath can it for about 5 or 10 minutes.
We are just now getting enough red tomatoes out of the garden to make something with. Most of ours are still green. So I made about a half batch of ketchup yesterday, but will make some more in the fall when I have more tomatoes.
Another thing I used to make when the children were all home is the homemade tomato soup. You just take a big pan and put some grease in the pan, about a couple tablespoons. Then let this melt, add about a fourth cup of flour, and stir this up. Then put some tomatoes through the blender and grind these up. You could add onions and green peppers, too. So then you will have about 4 cups or so of ground up tomatoes. So put this in the soup pot and cook it until the tomatoes are done. I mean, boil it and stir it until it bubbles and thickens a bit. Then, at the end, I would add a can of store bought tomato soup and some milk to thin the soup a bit. Then, of course, I added the ground black pepper and salt. You could add about a tablespoon of sugar, too. Don't add the milk at the beginning or it could curdle up on ya. I added the can of store soup, as our family liked it like this. I use a lot of tomato soup in my cooking, and I could always use the leftovers of this soup for the next day's meals.
I love to make tomato bread. I just put in, like, a couple cups of ground up tomatoes to 2 loaves of bread. Just make the regular white bread and cut down on the water you add to the regular recipe. Then I add herbs from my garden, like basil, garlic, chives, and sage. Then onions and green peppers. You could just blend all the herbs, etc. in the blender when you blend up the tomatoes. After this bread is about done, I just butter the top and then sprinkle it with parmesan cheese. Then I bake it the rest of the way in the oven. Also, I just make round loaves and bake this bread in my cast iron skillets ... the bread turns out really pretty. It's a reddish color with the green herbs and the white cheese on the top. It's delicious to eat with a fresh garden salad or a pasta salad. I may make some of this bread today. The kids are supposed to stop by this afternoon.
And, ya know, wild man ain't all that crazy about this bread. He don't especially like green weeds in his bread. The other day we were outside visiting, and he looks at this weed in the front yard flower garden. "What is this?" he says. And as if a fear moved slowly over his face, he says, "This ain't marijuana ya got growin' out here, is it?"
I gasped and held my hand to my chest. I said, "No, Honey, why do you think that?" I thought, "Good grief, this man puts nothing past me." I mean, I joke a lot, but growing marijuana in the front yard? It was sad, as I could tell Jim was just waiting for the perfect time to ask me about this. I have talked about growing tobacco and making him some cigarettes. But I wouldn't grow tobacco in my front yard flower garden, for cryin' out loud!
