Aunt Jean's Homemade Ketchup

A couple weeks ago our neighbor and I canned some salsa. When I posted about it my Aunt Jean emailed me saying she was happy to hear that I was trying my hand at canning, and that she had this wonderful ketchup recipe that she used to make for her boys when they were little. Two days ago I had an ENTIRE tray full of tomatoes from our garden and I knew just what to do with them. Ketchup!
After I chopped up the 12 cups of tomatoes Leyna helped me add the other ingredients and we started to cook. I have to say that if I had enough tomatoes I would make this every other day just for the way it made the house smell while it was cooking. It was AMAZING. So, here's the recipe. Hope you try it!

Aunt Jean's Homemade Tomato Ketchup
Ingredients

4 qts tomatoes, chopped

2 T salt

3 C sugar

1 T pickling spice

1 stick cinnamon

1/2 t red pepper (I only did 1/4 t as a trial since I didn't want it to be too spicy for the girls)

1 t ground mustard

2 C vinegar

Boil all together hard for 1 1/2 hours. Stir occasionally to prevent tomato mixture from sticking to bottom of pot and burning.

Put through sieve (I didn't have one so I used a colander. That's why if you look at the picture you can see ours has some seeds in it. Shockingly the girls didn't mind one bit!).  

Mix 4-6 T. corn starch moistened in a little vinegar (I made this little mixture and then completely forgot to add it with all the boiling and trying to keep the girls out of the kitchen! My ketchup still came out nice and thick though).  

Fill prepared jars, seal, and process in boiling water canner for 10 minutes. 

I ended up with 5 half pint jars. WOO HOO! I am loving the way our pantry looks with lots of jars of homemade goods.

This recipe is Leyna and Cora approved as of last night when they dipped their chicken nuggets in it :) Aunt Jean says it makes "the BEST" sloppy joes so we'll be trying that very soon!