Ketchup, Oh Naturelle!


We keep looking for ways to get the kids eating better and funny, if we go to a bit more trouble for ourselves we can help them out. The first time we made ketchup at home was for guests - we used it as a barbecue sauce. Believe it or not it is extremely tasty, very nutritious, completely raw and no harm at all to your diet.

For this one I gave up on the non-electrical blending methods. Roos insisted the kids wouldn't eat it if they saw "bits" in there. Still I enjoyed working all the ingredients together.

I used a muli - a hand press to work the tomatoes.  The basic recipe comes from Julian's Raw: The Uncook Book, a resource I can't rate highly enough. I've done much simpler versions like leaving out the ginger and the onion. I've also left out the basil. It still tastes great. And look what your kids are eating!

You need:

    * Half a dozen plum tomatoes
    * Half a medium sized onion finely diced
    * 3 sundried tomatoes finely diced
    * A half inch cube of ginger finely diced
    * Juice of two limes
    * 8 Basil leaves
    * 3 cloves garlic
    * 6 dates (big and juicy if you can find them)
    * A little crystal salt or Soy sauce
    * A drop or two of Maple Syrup - to your taste

Push the tomatoes through the Muli and then, into the juice, put the diced onion. Chop the dates finely. I soaked mine in the lime juice for a while too and then used a fork to really work the juices from the dates.

Crush three cloves of garlic and mince them with the basil leaves and ginger in a pestle and mortar, along with a little salt. Combine all these ingredients into the tomato juice and add iced sundried tomatoes and maple syrup. If you haven't used the lime juice yet, put it in now.

If you're not convinced by the coarse texture, put the lot into a blender and make something that looks like the Heinz version.

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Tags: recipes · tomatoes · ketchup · children's meal

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