Supermeow!

Note: I originally wrote this on September 19 and didn’t get around to publishing this until now. Oops.

Tomorrow is my husband Christian’s birthday. He doesn’t know this yet, but I am planning to surprise him with some dinner! I’m making him a meatloaf an’ mashed potato dinner with gravy and creamed spinach as a side. I decided that I was going to scratch-make some ketchup for the meatloaf (and for general use, too).

So! Away to the internet for clues on how this is done! I decided to use a recipe from Epicurious as my starting point. I didn’t really radically deviate from their recipe beyond using no brown sugar (didn’t have enough; used molasses instead), dry mustard, and adding a head of roasted garlic plus far more tomato paste than the recipe called for (I am a fiend for Muir Glen tomato paste – I eat it straight from the can if I’m using it in a recipe that only calls for a tablespoon or something. I do not believe in wasting good tomato paste by freezing it in ice cube trays for use later – I believe it belongs in my belly). Next time I make this, I will probably skip/cut back on allspice and use less vinegar. Oh, I also added a couple dashes of Worcestershire sauce, thus making it a non-vegetarian food.

I took a few pictures of my ketchup as it was cooking but alas, my camera (recovered yesterday from my parents) is being an a-hole and not letting me get pictures off of it.