Ketchup.

This morning, I made homemade ketchup for the second time ever. And it turned out pretty good.  The bottles (pictured to the right) are cooling on the counter right now.  Once they’re done (I just heard one of them pop), they should be shelf stable, if left unopened, for at least 6 months, probably longer.

This originally came about because I wanted to give my dad something unusual and hand-made for Christmas last year. He ended up getting a bottle caddy with two bottles of homemade ketchup, a bottle of homemade mustard, and a bottle of unique steak sauce that I doubt tasted any good, but sounded like fun at the time. I had lots left over (like, one of the 12-oz bottles you see in the picture, plus an entire one-quart Stor-N-Pour®, plus a bit more. I just opened the last bottle about a week ago. I really like it; it’s got an interesting twang to it, making it taste more like a steak sauce than ketchup (yes, I know ketchup can be used as steak sauce). Probably because I ran out of red wine vinegar the first time, and had to substitute some cheap balsamic vinegar instead. But it still turned out excellent (and I do prefer it over any other processed ketchup that I’ve ever eaten).

This time, I was at Central Market over the weekend, and saw that they had yellow tomatoes on sale for $1.99 a pound.

So I decided I’d try to make yellow ketchup. And it turned out OK. It’s not actually yellow, more of a dull brown color, but it’s still pretty darn tasty. I may end up having some tonight with dinner (burgers and fries, I believe).  If you read my previous post, you know that I decided to try making this batch according to the recipe presented by Jamie Oliver, rather than using the printed recipe from Food Network.  Here’s my observations on the difference:

I liked not having to find, buy, and chop fennel bulb. It probably made for less to strain out at the end as well. I also liked the shorter cooking time: when I cooked the last batch, I think I was in the kitchen for about 6 or 8 hours, waiting for things to reduce. This time, I started cooking at about 10:00 (after I bought and cleaned some bottles), and capped the last bottle just before 1:00. And that included a “Heather, can you stir this for me every 10 minutes or so, while I run to Chipotle for lunch?” I think that if I’d taken the tomatoes that I simply chopped, and instead made Passata out of it, I might not have had quite as long to wait for the sauce to thicken. But then I would’ve spent a couple of hours making passata, so I’ll call that one a draw. If I’d substituted white or yellow onions for the red onions in the recipe, I might’ve gotten a brighter color that was closer to yellow than brown. And if I could find a way to use a different vinegar without substantially modifying the flavor of the finished sauce, that might also add to the color.

All in all, I think it turned out just fine, and now I’ve got some ketchup to keep and eat, some to give to Dad for Father’s Day next month, and some to inflict upon give to my friends.  The full recipe, for those interested, is below the fold.

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I just watched the “pickles and preserves” episode of Jamie at Home again, because I’m planning something special for my friends and family, and it struck me as odd that the recipe cooked on the show has virtually no resemblance to the recipe that I printed off of the Food Network website – the American broadcaster for the series – a few months ago (on my birthday, it seems.  Didn’t realize that).

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I started out this afternoon thinking “I’ve got extra POINTS(tm) to blow, I should to go to Central Market and have a pizza for lunch”.  But then I realized that it was noon-thirty on a rainy Saturday, and that everyone and their dog would probably be there. So I watched some old episodes of Jamie at Home (I love his cooking style, even though I’ll never have the appreciation for bitter greens or chiles that he seems to have), to wait out either the weather or my estimate of how many people would be there.

I must’ve been inspired while I was watching the cooking shows, or maybe I came to my senses and decided I didn’t need to eat all that fat and cheese. Whatever the cause, the result was the tasty recipe that’s below the fold.  I was reminded, as I ate it, of a tortilla sandwich that I got as a lunchtime snack in a bar in Madrid, when I was on a tour of Southern Spain after high school.  That sandwich was on a crusty baguette, and this one is on sourdough toast, but I think I properly captured the essence of the sandwich.  And it was much tastier than the pizza would have been. Home cooking triumphs again!

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Those who follow my twitter feed probably saw something about this earlier today, but Weight Watchers seems to be working for me (again).

A bit of background:

Back in the middle of April, Heather and I stayed with my grandparents when we were up in D/FW for a wedding.  I stepped on the scale after taking a shower on Saturday morning, and was greeted with a site I’d never seen before: a number over 299.  Utterly disgusted with my fat self, I decided then and there that I was going to start losing weight, and not stop until I got down to what I considered reasonable (200 or lower).  Knowing that this was a lofty goal, especially keeping in mind my own willpower and tendency to gain, rather than lose, weight, I’ve decided to heed standard diet advice, and set small interim goals of 2-3 pounds per week.

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I think I may turn this into a series of posts, or even an entire site.  But I’ll start with one post about the basics.

First, an introduction. I learned to sew in 2006, shortly after I started dating the woman who is now my lovely wife.  Part of the reason I learned to sew was, to be honest, in order to find an interest that we both shared. But it’s now grown far past that; I sewed my entire outfit for Texas Renaissance Faire last year: a doublet with detachable sleeves, a high-collar, long-sleeve shirt, and a pair of fitted breeches (pants).  I’ve made several shirts, a couple of doublets, and at least 2 pairs of pants.  I’ve sewed several small pouches, and I’m currently working on a fairly ambitious laptop bag.  I’m not brave enough to commit to making an entire outfit that I’d wear to work, for example, but in my wife’s opinion, I apparently have the skills to do.

I decided to write this post (which as I said may turn into a series, or more) because I know there’s a stigma that sewing isn’t a manly thing to do, or that it’s women’s work, or that you must be gay if you like to sew and are male.  So let me set the record straight (no pun intended) from the start: I am a heterosexual male, I am married and have a child on the way, and I enjoy sewing.  The act of creating something with your hands, which you or someone else can then wear or use, is fascinating and deeply satisfying to me.

There are many speed bumps and deep pits on the journey from “that sounds like a neat hobby” to “check out this shirt that I just finished sewing”.  I’ll do my best to help you navigate around those pits, so that you too can experience the joy of creating something that isn’t made of electrons and doesn’t need to eat.  I’m starting today with what I consider the “basic equipment” needed to sew.  This is by no means an exhaustive list; it’s instead just the bare bones without which I would likely not start a project.  Read the full list, along with some crappy pictures that I took with my phone, after the jump.

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I saw this “getting to know you” poll over at Brownie Points, and figured I’d answer it and pass it along.

metal or non-stick? I assume this is about pans and not utensils. Non-stick for eggs, metal for things that need a good fond. Otherwise, whatever happens to be clean.

cast iron or stainless? cast iron, unless my arms are sore and I can’t lift it out of the cabinet.

cutting board: silicon or wood? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cutting board made out of silicon, or silicone for that matter.  Polycarbonate (AKA “plastic”) for me, unless it’s exclusively for non-staining veggies.

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OK, so I’m exaggerating a bit. I’ve just found that micro-blogging (and I don’t even do THAT too often most days) is easier then a full-on blog update. But I got jealous of Heather and Katelyn both posting updates in the same day, so I figured I’d follow suit.

So, what have I been up to since my last post? To be honest, I had to go back into the archives (and sift past all of the delicious.com autoposts) to remember. And it looks like I’ve started (and done) a lot of stuff since my last post.

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Sometimes, it seems like my normally quiet nature works against me. I have a blog (you’re reading it right now), but it seems like 95% of the posts in the last few years are the reposts from delicious.com (née del.icio.us). The long format just isn’t something at which I’m very good. Twitter seems to be a little better for me, but I fear that were I to abandon the blog altogether, I’d eventually have something to say that wouldn’t fit into the 140 characters that you get from Twitter (for example, this post, which is up to 555 characters already). But in the same vein, I also worry that the blog has become a wasteland, a remnant of better days when I had more to say (or at least, was able to write more about what I wanted to say). Plus there’s the whole “what happens to your data if the cloud blows away” aspect; what if twitter were to go under? All the posts that I make, even considering the signal:noise ratio, vanish into the aether. The digital world is even more transient than the physical, I understand that, but at least while I control my own sites, I can be reasonably certain that what I’ve written won’t vanish without warning.

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The hosting for devlogic.org (and hez.devlogic.org, and logic.cx, and maybe a few others) has been moved. If you’re reading this post, then you’re looking at the new site. If not, um, how are you reading this?

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I broke down and signed up for a DreamHost account this morning. At the price I paid, I could hardly refuse. So some transitions are in order, which means the site, my email, and my jabber server may be “in flux” for a few days while I move various services to the new server (and IP address).

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