I started craving barbecue when Jedd's mother came to the apartment raving about some delicious chicken she had just had.

That made me remember the barbecued pork that our friends Ben and Kelee had made us last fall.

“Hmmm, I've never made Kelee's barbecue sauce recipe.” I checked the recipe ingredients and realized that it called for ketchup.

That posed a problem.

I've never purchased ketchup. Jedd's never bought ketchup either.

I've always thought it was kind of a bland condiment. I can't think of anything that ketchup does that salsa doesn't do better. But, for this recipe it was clear that it had to be ketchup, salsa wouldn't do.

But, I wasn't going to go out and buy ketchup because I had yellow cherry tomatoes in the freezer, brown sugar in the cupboard, and vinegar on the shelf. I knew those were the main ingredients – so why buy a bottle that would sit in our refrigerator until I decided to make barbecue sauce again? So, I concocted my own.

Homemade Ketchup

1 tablespoon of olive oil

1 diced medium onion

1 pint of cherry tomatoes (Ours were frozen so there was some thawing that had to happen before I could prep them.)

¼ cup of apple cider vinegar

2 tablespoons of tomato paste

2 tablespoons of chipotles in adobo sauce (optional)

¼ cup of brown sugar

½ teaspoon of dried mustard

½ teaspoon of cinnamon

¼ teaspoon of allspice

Saute the onion in the olive oil. While the onions are getting soft, puree the cherry tomatoes in a food processor. Add the vinegar, brown sugar, tomato paste, dried mustard, cinnamon and allspice. Let simmer for 10 minutes on low heat.

I used the chipotles to deepen the color because I had started off with orange cherry tomatoes. And they gave the ketchup a nice heat on top of adding red. I still can't think of many occasions when I will need ketchup other than for Kelee's barbecue sauce – but it's nice to know that I have a good recipe to use for the building block.

(Photos by Launie Kettler)

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