Facebook tomato sauce and home made ketchup revisited

Steve came across what looked like a great recipe for a fresh tomato sauce on pasta on  Facebook yesterday.  I thought this would be great too and wanted to try it.  Basically, all I needed were a couple of fresh tomatoes and a box grater.  I couldn't remember if I packed my box grater or left it at the house.  If I didn't have it I knew I had a single sided grater that would do the same job.
All you had to do was grate the fresh tomato, add olive oil and basil and then toss over pasta.  Easy!

I thought I'd like to add some sauteed zucchini and mushrooms to the mix.  Salt pepper, onion powder, olive oil.

No box grater so I got this greater out- total failure, it wouldn't even cut the tomato!

Next, try a food mill

This went from bad to worse. 

I ended up with tomato juice

So I went to the drawer and found the dullest knife on the planet and hacked the tomatoes up

We don't usually eat at 8:30 pm but due to travelling and a last minute menu , tonight we did.

No homemade pasta tonight, but store pasta  was pretty good and the sauce ended up tasting great!

Tomatoes, mushrooms, zucchini, salt, pepper, onion powder, basil and a little Orrington Farms Broth Base chicken stock powder to taste.  A nice fresh sauce and it would have been super fast if I hadn't gone through so many kitchen tools!  Next time the tomatoes are going in the Vitamix!

I use Orrington Farms Broth Base powder because it has no MSG or high fructose corn syrup and it has a great taste.  I buy mine at Walmart, they are 3.00 a jar and last a long time.

No Back to my homemade Ketchup recipe. I took it off the blog because after it staying in my fridge it developed a texture we didn't like.  I tried another recipe and while it was great at first , after another day it wasn't so great.  My recipes were similar to other ones I've seen and I just wasn't satisfied.  The one I used long ago when my kids were small must have been different, I thought I was using the same one. 

 So my sincere 

apologies if anyone has tried it and felt they ended up wasting ingredients.

I still needed and organic and healthier alternative  so I tried a commercial brand:

I found this in the organic section and thought why not, I will give it a try.\

This gets 5 stars, it is delicious and the ingredients are pretty good.  The flavor is much richer and more complex than regular ketchup and the price is good.  we loved it so much.  I think I will quit trying to make my own for a while.

                                                                                

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a great day!

Ginny M