Day 2

OK, after cooking the tomatoes down to soften them yesterday, I put them in the fridge in LARGE containers till today....
First, I run them through the food mill to separate the seeds and skins from juice. What a mess.

Then, adding the spices, vinegar, and other ingredients, this pan was filled to the absolute brim, and it spends a long time cooking down to gloop thickness. You know gloop thickness. When the boiling reaches the point of splashes all over the stove top, counter, arms, etc. Gloop.

This was my invented step. I line a colander with cheesecloth and let it drain....like if you were making yogurt and wanted to drain the excess moisture out to create Greek yogurt.

Look at that steam. I told Friend Marilyn today that if I was in the house it would have peeled the wallpaper off the walls. Today I was so grateful for my "little kitchen" in a tacked on room in the garage. (Do you see how full that oblong pan is? How much it cooked down?)

I kept very close track of everything so I could tell our cousin how this whole thing worked out. I worked from 9 this morning till 5 this afternoon cooking down 6 gallons of juiced tomato. It is a true labor of love when a half bushel of tomatoes cooks down to 7 pints of ketchup. Yes, you can buy ketchup for a whole lot less....a whole lot less. But it won't taste like Aunt Marcella's.

When I finished I also have that wonderful tasting liquid that dripped out when I strained in the cheesecloth. I don't know what to do with it, but it's just too tasty to waste. It has to be good for something. I think I'll break it down into small containers and freeze it for winter.