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…