Catsup, Ketchup, Cat's Sup.

OK, more like Peter's actually.

Peter is the real catsup fan in the house. I like it on the really skinny, bad-for-you kind of french fries that I shouldn't be eating anyway, but Peter likes it on lots of things.

And we ran out of our last pre-plastic fast bottle a week before last--just at the start of cookout season. What fun is a portobello burger with no catsup? Alas, I am no longer able to find it locally in a glass container.

Happily, there are lots of recipes online. Here's the one I used... though I chose it mostly from convenience, because it used (or I felt comfortable substituting) ingredients I already had on hand. It was very easy to make, and I understand that some cooks, who really like to save money, make an even simpler version than this, with nothing but tomato, water, vinegar, salt and sugar.

Cat's Catsup

1 can of tomato paste (I chose organic)
1/4 cup apple juice
1/4 cup sugar
1 T. molasses
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. good quality curry powder
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. cloves
2 T. vinegar

Mix together ingredients. Adjust liquid and/or vinegar as needed for your preferred taste/consistency.

Refrigerate.

And for my next trick? I'm thinking of trying to make some black raspberry jam. Not that it will save plastic, exactly, but there's this one bush that's producing cup after cup of them. And preserving and eating food from our own back yard... well, I certainly can't complain about the food miles!

Photo credit: Yohan euan 04, at "Ketchup" at World News

Comments

Ali said…

We're thinking of doing the same with the mulberry tree that's hanging over the driveway from the neighbor's yard. Especially because of the new folks who just moved in and want to cut it back/down to save the hassle of all its berries getting squished and attracting flies.... Bet they'd think twice if they had some delicious MULBERRY JAM SANDWICHES!!! :)

4:46 PM

Peter on Grief and Communities

Well, that was unexpected. For the last year, ever since my mom's health took a sharp downturn, I've been my dad's ride to Florence Congregational Church on Sundays. That community has been important for my dad and the weekly outing with me was something he always looked forward to and enjoyed, so I didn't mind taking him there. It meant giving up attending my own Quaker meeting for the duration, but I had already been questioning whether silent waiting worship was working for me. I was ready for a sabbatical. A month ago, my dad was Section-Twelved into a geriatric psych hospital when his dementia started to make him emotionally volatile. I had been visiting him every day at his assisted living facility which was right on my way home from work, but the hospital was almost an hour away. I didn't see him at all for three weeks, and when I did visit him there, it actually took me a couple of seconds to recognize him. He was slumped forward in a wheel chair, lo...

A Quaker Pagan Day Book: Testimonies and Queries

Pagans often argue about how to define who we are. What are the boundaries--between Wicca and Witchcraft, between Heathens and Pagans, between polytheists, pantheists, and non-theists... While I could do without the acrimony, we're a new as well as an old religious movement, so it makes sense that like any adolescent, we are fascinated by questions of identity. I will admit to preferring the Quaker approach to identity, though: rather than trying to create the definitive checklist of belief that make someone a "real Quaker," Friends typically share a body of testimonies and questions for reflection with those who are drawn to the Religious Society of Friends. "Do you feel this same sort of spiritual leading?" Friends ask one another. "Does this speak to the condition of your soul, as it does to ours?" Queries, not checklists of doctrine, hold the ways Quakers approach discernment, including around membership. And though no individual can declar...

Red in Tooth and Claw

When Nora, Peter's grandmother, lived with us , our household was the nucleus of an active local Pagan community. Over time, dementia eroded more and more of Nora's ability to retain anything she learned about in the present, so she wound up discovering again and again that she was living in a family of Pagans. Over and over, we would have made some reference to our Paganism, and Nora, having forgotten about it for the time being, would ask us to explain again what it was we believed. We would explain, yet again, about all of life being sacred to us, and nature being the source of our inspiration. Each time we did this, we would reach the point in our discussion where she would protest, quoting the line from Tennyson about " Nature, red in tooth and claw ." Nevertheless, we would insist that that was where we looked for the holy, and eventually, she would exclaim (just as she had the time before that): "Well, then, you're all heathens!" When we ...

Quaker Pagan Reflections

Search This Blog