Catsup on a Chicago hot dog!!  Heresy you say?  Possibly, but home-made catsup is simple to make and allows you to control sweetness and tang.  Fast ’cause you’re just assembling and dumping ingredients into a slow cooker; cooker will work all day or overnight, but you’re not the one doing the cooking!  Let’s start:

You will need:

Slow cooker.  While you could make this on the stove, why???  sheesh!

Crushed tomatoes.  Two 28 oz cans, but use what you have and adjust seasonings.

Sugar.  ½ cup and can add more at the end.

Vinegar.  ½ cup white vinegar; you can swap out malt, apple cider or balsamic vinegar for variety.  White vinegar is what you find in the big brands.

Celery.  1 cup chopped ribs and leaves.  Many recipes use celery salt, but why not use the real thing?  Same goes for onion powder.

Onions.  2 small yellow onions because they were potent.

Garlic powder.  ½ teaspoon, but can add more at the end.

Clove for the tang.  Used 2 but they were leftovers from the Baby Jesus baby shower – use 1 if from this century.

Salt and pepper.  Couple of turns on the black pepper mill and a ½ teaspoon of sea salt; better to adjust at the end.

Immersion blender, processor or blender plus funnel & strainer.

I’ve added liquids and sugar plus two sliced yellow onions already – now comes garlic powder, salt, pepper and clove.  

Add a cup of chopped celery hearts (love the leaves).

Stir and cook on high for a few hours while sauce bubbles, then cover and cook on low until reduced by half (~10 hours or overnight).  House will smell divine!

Sauce has cooked overnight on low (covered) and on high uncovered for a few hours this morning – see how much thicker it’s become?  Let cool to room temperature and taste – I needed to add a touch more sugar and garlic powder.

I decided against both processor and stick blender since I had a lot of sauce and the Vita-Mix (my blender on steroids) will pulverize so no straining necessary.  If you have a powerful blender, try it and see.

Funnel into jar and sauce into funnel.

Beautiful and extremely tasty – I can understand why people eat catsup sandwiches!  Gonna transfer to a squeeze bottle, but that’s not very photogenic…

One way to get more flavor when cooking is to use infused oils.  I adore rosemary and rub this infused oil on roast chicken, sauté fish and pork in it or just use in vinaigrette.  It’s easy, fast and cheap – the trifecta of cooking.

You will need:

Rosemary (or any herb — thyme, basil, sage…)
Oil enough to fill container (we like olive, but use a more neutral oil if you prefer)
Pot, funnel & strainer

Pour oil into pot and add your herb of choice.  Bring up to a very, very slow simmer.  The key is to not let the oil get too hot or the herb will fry and then game over.  I bring the heat up slowly and then turn off the flame and allow the oil to cool.  Perform this maneuver a few times and your oil will become more intense with each warming.  Just don’t let it fry!!

When cool (I let the pot sit overnight), use our old friends strainer & funnel and pour into container; I reuse a plastic olive oil bottle though purists might insist on dark glass because I like to see how much I have.  it’s a control thing 🙂

And here is the finished product which I keep in the cabinet. Never any spoilage issues, since it’s used within a couple of months.

And if you haven’t fried your rosemary, store in the refrigerator and toss in your next slow-cooked dish – yum!

I’m making a ginger syrup today because it’s what we use to sweeten sun tea, but anything or nothing can be used in a simple syrup recipe.  Use it in anything that requires sweetening – beverages (hot or cold), baked goods and booze!

You will need:

whole ginger root
sugar (I use organic turbinado, but I’m just picky!)
water
pot, strainer & funnel

Roughly slice ginger; it doesn’t have to be even, as long as it’s fresh, not shriveled.

For the amount of ginger shown, I put four cups of water and slightly over one cup of sugar.  Since turbinado is a coarse grind, you need to add slightly more to equal a cup of white refined sugar.  It actually isn’t super-critical to measure exactly, so don’t worry!  I use Emeril cookware made by All-Clad and get their quality without the high sticker price.

Now it simmers over a low flame until concentrated to your taste or you run out of patience.  The more you concentrate, the less you’ll need to add to recipes.  And yes, do taste this periodically to see how sweet it is becoming.  At this point you can turn off the heat and come back later if you’re pressed for time; done it many a time.

When your syrup has concentrated to your taste, let it cool and transfer to a container using a strainer and funnel, then store in the refrigerator – I’ve left mine there for weeks while out of town.

If you’re blessed with a family whose milk usage varies from half to 2 gallons a week, depending on their cereal jones, you have faced the same dilemma:  Should it stay or should it go?  Here’s an easy-peasy way to use up the darned stuff that takes less than 30 minutes (most spent simmering on its own).

You’ll need:

sour or milk about to turn – use the sniff test – whole works best
white vinegar (if your milk doesn’t form curds on its own)
dash of salt to taste
stainless steel pot
cheesecloth
colander
candy thermometer

Dump milk into pot over medium flame; attach candy thermometer.  When temp hits 180-200° move pot and wait a few minutes to cool.You are looking for curd separation, so if you don’t see anything after the temperature hits about 150° add a tablespoon of vinegar (more or less, depending on amount of milk) until you get some clumping.  

This is how the cooled mixture looks when poured into cheesecloth-lined colander. 

I put the colander on top of a pot to collect the whey instead of pouring it down the drain.  While people rave about whey for baking, Chicago in August is not the time to take up a bread-baking hobby. Twist the cheesecloth to squeeze out more whey, but that’s it.  Leave as-is and crumble on tacos.  Press out more liquid for a firmer and drier cheese that will keep longer in the fridge.  Add a tablespoon or two of milk or cream to make creamy cottage cheese.

My gallon yielded roughly 3 cups of very tasty cheese.  While I added a teaspoon of salt, your craving might be different.  I now mourn all those years of wasted milk…

Got this Ultra email this morning with this Friday Feature.  Go to the store and none on display and produce knows nothing about this deal but says people keep coming in for their 88¢ blueberries!  Customer Service handled it all very well and rang up my whole produce order, so that was fine.  It’s PITA’s birthday, so we’ll enjoy these with whipped coconut milk either tonight or, more likely, tomorrow afternoon.  Made a big pot of chicken soup with Costco rotisserie chicken and the Ultra carrots and celery plus my 10¢ a box rice from Jewel clearance a few months ago.

Remember all that cheap chocolate we always find?  And how it always seems like a good deal?  And how it piles up until we get to the point where we’re almost ready to pitch it?  nah, me neither…  ahem.

So I decided that I was gonna make my own Chunky-style candy bars, but I got side-tracked along the way and ended up with something even tastier!

First thing I did was break all these nasty chalky-looking bars into pieces – the flavor isn’t affected (Google it!)
and melted them over indirect heat, the safest way.
Into the pot went milk, vanilla, cinnamon, raisins and dried bits of plums along with a few packages of chopped hazelnuts. I also added a healthy shot of chipotle powder for some kick. Once everything melted I poured the mixture into a plastic-lined pan and put it out on the back porch (covered by a towel) overnight.
Next day I lifted the entire block out of the pan and cut it into small chunks.  At that point it was a lot more like fudge, but then it dried out enough to not leave skid marks when you shove it down your pie hole.  I would recommend keeping it in a ziploc or plastic container to prevent it from drying out too much.  Oh, and I really recommend warning people that the chipotle has a mean kick at the end.