I Can't Believe I'm Doing This...
Of all my recipes, the one I've published the most times is Dana's No-Sugar Ketchup, which appeared in... oh, goodness, 500 Low-Carb Recipes, 500 More Low-Carb Recipes, 15 Minute Low-Carb Recipes,The Low-Carb Barbecue Book, 200 Low-Carb Slow-Cooker Recipes, and quite possibly another I'm not thinking of.
Which makes it a tad embarrassing to admit that I've improved it. I mean, I've put the old version in all those books, and now with one simple change I've really made the recipe noticeably better. It's a d'oh! moment, that's for sure.
The original goes like this...
Dana's No-Sugar Ketchup
6 ounces tomato paste
2/3 cup cider vinegar
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup Splenda
2 tablespoons minced onion
2 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon pepper
Just throw everything in your blender and run, scraping down the sides from time to time, until the onion and garlic disappear. Store in a snap-top container in the fridge, and use just like any ketchup.
Makes 1 1/2 cups, or 12 servings of two tablespoons, each with: 18 Calories; trace Fat ; 1g Protein; 5g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber
This ketchup is very good; it really does taste like the ketchup you grew up with. But it has an annoying tendency to separate.
I solved this with a very simple substitution: Tomato sauce for the tomato paste. Here's the new version:
Dana's No-Sugar Ketchup Redux
15 ounces tomato sauce (my grocery store carries cans just this size)
2/3 cup cider vinegar
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup Splenda
2 tablespoons minced onion
2 cloves garlic
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon pepper
salt -- to taste
Again, throw everything in the blender, but leave out the salt for now. Run till the onion and garlic disappear. Now pour into a non-reactive saucepan -- stainless steel, glass, enamel lined, or something like that. (NOT aluminum or cast iron.) Put it over low heat and let it simmer till it's thickened to the texture of commercial ketchup. Salt to taste when it's thickened. (This is because cooking it down increases saltiness.) Store in a snap-top container in the fridge.
I didn't measure my yield, but assuming you get 12 servings, each will have 17 Calories; trace Fat; 1g Protein; 4g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber
This version doesn't separate! Next time I'll try leaving out the water to begin with, and cooking it down less, but as it is, I'm very happy with this change.
