The Flavor of Catching Up and a Vintage Homemade Ketchup Recipe

Published on July 12, 2024 by In The Vintage Kitchen2 Comments

One minute it was mid-April. The witch hazel had just arrived in the mail. A newly planted pot of Nemesia was fluffing out on the front porch, ready for its photo shoot and its spotlight feature in the Fragrant Year series. The collard greens, beets, peas, and kale were growing up in the garden. The second-year foxglove was throwing out layer after layer of leaves, mounding up like bushes. The shop was a flurry of activity – filling and emptying, filling and emptying with stories, heirlooms, and recipes, from kitchens, cooks, and history past.

The next minute it’s the 4th of July. I’m making a vintage summer recipe for the blog. The humidity has set in and the slugs have returned. The witch hazel has grown 6″ inches. Tomatoes and corn have replaced the kale and collards in the garden. The Nemesia has outgrown its pot twice. The summer vegetable garden has been planted. The autumn pumpkin seedlings have started to flower. And the shop is filling and emptying, filling and emptying again with a season’s worth of new old stories.

How did three months pass so quickly? How did we go so fast from collards at the end of one season to corn at the beginning of another? How did all the trees leaf out, and the wildflowers bloom on the side of the road, and the strawberries appear and then disappear? How did Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, Father’s Day, and Fourth of July fireworks pass without a single reflective moment to stop and share here on the blog?

So many interesting stories, gardening adventures, and heirloom gatherings have filled up those past three months. So many things I wanted to share, slated to share, photographed to share. But somehow, the days whizzed by. One by one, ten by twenty, thirty by sixty. All to wind up here at ninety days with nothing new but last April’s post.

Long stretches of absence like this are rare here on the blog and it can be challenging to start back up again after such an extended time away. Fortunately, after much stewing about how to return and what to say, Eleanor Roosevelt breezed into the Vintage Kitchen last week and offered up a bit of wisdom.

“If life were predictable, it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

This quote is attributed to Eleanor’s 1937 autobiography, This is My Story, which is now included on my list of books to read. Somehow Eleanor’s wise words wound up describing the very circumstance that defined the last three months. It was unpredictable. It was full of flavor.

The greenhouse got a fence. The hollyhocks bloomed. The 1750 House cupola was rebuilt. The vegetable garden was harvested for spring. And then it was re-planted for summer. The holidays were celebrated. The tomatoes climbed. Tulip bulbs were ordered for fall. Vegetable seeds were exchanged. A wild pheasant stopped by to say hello. Friends and family came to visit. Recipes were cooked. Heirlooms were collected. And after a two year wait, the foxgloves flowered for the first time.

The activities were plentiful, and each day different in routine and rhythm. Just like Eleanor said… they were full. In that spirit of busy activity, I thought it would be fun to do a quick recap via photos of what’s been going on in the kitchen, the garden, and the shop over the past three months so that we could wind our way back towards the present to share a new vintage recipe so perfectly suited for the mood and the moment. This is a catch-up post of the past three months with a 1960s recipe for homemade ketchup attached at the end. Catching up with ketchup, if you will.

A Look Back…

Two of the most exciting 1750 House renovation projects were the rebuilding of the 1930s cupola which had been chewed to pieces by squirrels long before we moved in, and the addition of a long-awaited fence around the greenhouse. The cupola was rebuilt using old tools and old techniques and squirrel-proofed so that the weathervane horse could freely run with the wind once again…

The greenhouse fence adds some dimension to the side yard and forms the backdrop for a cottage garden that will eventually include shrubs, perennials, climbing flowers, and a permanent herb garden.

In early May, a wild pheasant came to visit…

In early June, a prehistoric-looking Dobson fly appeared one morning in the greenhouse…

And at the end of June, we saw our first butterfly of the season, a Red-Spotted Purple dipping and diving around the garden path and raised beds.

The witch hazel, from February’s Fragrant Year post, arrived in the mail in mid-April with not one bare root specimen but three, even though I just ordered one. All three trees were planted and named (Hazel, Harriet and Hilda – a nod to the original H-hinges inside 1750 House) so that I can track and record each one’s progress. All was well for a couple of months with each leafing out and growing taller, but sadly, Hazel got some sort of blight and lost all her leaves. I’ve left her in the ground in hopes that she recovers, so we’ll wait and see what happens over the next few months. In the meantime, Hilda and Harriet are doing great. In three months, they’ve each grown 6″ inches and have sprouted numerous sets of leaves. If they keep that growth rate up through the fall, by the end of 2024 they should be reaching about four feet in height.

Scenes From The Garden…

Cherry Tomatoes (Variety: Sun Gold Pole)

Stories From The Shop…

Every bit of kitchen history is always interesting, but every season there are a few stand-out stories that capture quite a bit of attention. These are some of the latest encountered over the past three months. Clicking on the photos will take you directly to the shop item that inspired further storytelling…

The lives and adventures of early 20th-century husband and wife explorer team – Zetta and Carveth Wells

Long Island’s Roosevelt Raceway, a horse racing mecca from the 1940s-1980

.

The prize-winning pattern of a 1943 amateur design contest held by the Vogue Mercantile Institute in collaboration with Homer Laughlin.

The story of Perdita and the Charleston restaurant she inspired.

The 1930s baking invention of Cale Schneider.

Just last week, we debuted our own custom-designed ITVK gift wrap. The floral pattern was inspired by a vintage print that I found in a South Carolina antique shop in 2003. That print, along with an antique platter also found that day, launched a passion for collecting vintage and antique heirlooms and laid the groundwork for what would eventually become In The Vintage Kitchen.

This was a packaging project I first started dreaming about during the 2020 COVID lockdown. I picked the colors in the bouquet to represent the brand colors of the Vintage Kitchen long before I ever knew that a red house built in 1750 and surrounded by garden beds of orange lilies awaited in my future. The floral bouquet was resized, recolored, and brightened up to give it a more modern feel by a wonderfully talented graphic designer based in Austria. I think it’s the perfect blend of history, sentiment and fate. All purchases from the shop are wrapped, and complimentary, so if you find an heirloom you love, it will arrive packaged up in this…

That Was Then, This Is Now…

Now that we are all caught up, let’s ketchup. This recipe comes from the 1961 New York Times Cookbook, edited by one of our favorite Vintage Kitchen cooks, Craig Claiborne. Since it’s condiment season I thought this would be a fun one to feature for a couple of reasons.

Just like mayonnaise, I have always heard that a homemade version is much tastier than any store-bought variety. And since there aren’t really that many different types of ketchup available at the market, this recipe will add a little something unique and unexpected to your summer cookouts. Also, at some point in the summer when harvests are abundant and overwhelming, I always find it helpful to have a collection of recipes at the ready that require big batches of tomatoes so that nothing goes to waste. This recipe definitely calls for that.

This week we are making Spicy Tomato Ketchup from scratch using garden ingredients and a handful of pantry staples. The spice in the title comes from a small amount of cayenne pepper which can be omitted completely if you don’t like a little extra zip. But just to clarify this is a true ketchup, not a hot sauce, so if you are not a lover of hot and spicy foods, don’t worry, it won’t set your mouth on fire. Milder than Tabasco sauce, I’d rate the spice factor of this ketchup at about a 3 on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the hot, hot, hot side.

The recipe calls for 12 pounds of tomatoes which yields about 6-8 pints of ketchup. When writing the cookbook, Craig Claiborne assumed that you would make a big batch, seal everything in sterile jars, and add it to your pantry collection for later consumption. Clearly, 8 pints is a lot of ketchup and not everyone is a home canner, myself included. I cut the recipe in half and then in half again and wound up with about 1 cup of ketchup after starting with 3 lbs of tomatoes. That size batch is shelf-stable in the fridge and is just the right amount for a few servings, and a few slatherings. Having said that, I’m posting the original recipe in case you are a ketchup lover and a canner too. This way, the measurements and portion sizes can be customized to your own needs. As for timing and difficulty, it takes a few hours to make this recipe, but it’s a very easy process. The bulk of the cooking time is hands-off while you wait for the tomato puree to reduce to a ketchup-like consistency.

Spicy Tomato Ketchup

Recipe from 1961 edition of The New York Times Cook Book. Makes 6-8 pints

12 pounds ripe tomatoes

1 cup chopped onion ( I used Vidalia onions)

1 tablespoon salt

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 teaspoon celery seed

1 teaspoon mustard seed

1 tablespoon whole cloves

1 stick cinnamon, broken

1 1/2 cups vinegar

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Remove the seeds before you cook the tomatoes.

Core and chop the tomatoes. Cook the tomatoes and onions together until soft (about 20-30 minutes) and then press the mixture through a fine sieve.

The cooked tomato and onion mixture before it is pressed through the sieve.

The tomato and onion mixture after it has been pressed through the sieve (large bowl).

Return puree to heat and cook until reduced by one-half, stirring occasionally. Combine spices in cheesecloth or a tea strainer and set in the puree. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir.

Continue cooking uncovered to desired consistency (about 2-4 hours depending on the amount of tomatoes used). Remove the spice bag. Seal ketchup in hot sterilized jars or refrigerate in an air-tight container if making a smaller batch.

With a thick consistency, a sweet taste and a peppery bite this homemade ketchup was full of delicious, tangy flavor. A little bit darker in color than our usual brand of store-bought ketchup, the best way to describe the difference between these versions is to compare them side by side.

The store-bought ketchup was not as sweet and it tasted tinny like canned tomatoes with a mineral undertone. The homemade ketchup was sweeter, brighter, and more evenly balanced in flavor. The store-bought version was candy-apple red in color and smoother in consistency. The homemade version, although not thin, was more sauce-like in texture, similar to a steak sauce or a barbeque sauce, and slightly more opaque. The last defining difference between the two was the spice factor, which of course was the unique ingredient in the homemade version.

Interestingly, the store-bought ketchup contained very similar ingredients to the homemade version… organic tomato concentrate, organic sugar, organic vinegar, salt, organic spices, and organic onion powder – not too different from the ingredients we used. But like anything made from scratch in small batches, as opposed to something made en masse in a factory, you can’t beat fresh, homemade, whole-food flavor.

You might suspect that ketchup would have an origin story that begins in Italy, given the country’s love of homegrown tomatoes and homemade sauce. But actually, ketchup is steeped in centuries of Chinese food culture and dates all the way back to the 1700s when it was first used as a way to ferment and preserve fish. At that point in time, there were no tomatoes involved and it was not red in color. It was thin and watery and looked more like soy sauce. It wasn’t until the early 1800s in America that tomatoes in ketchup made their debut.

Henry John Heinz (1844-1919) made ketchup a famous American condiment in the 1870s after years spent first experimenting with horseradish. By the 1960s, when this Spicy Tomato Ketchup recipe was published in The New York Times Cook Book, Heinz Ketchup was a worldwide favorite bringing in over $300 million dollars a year in global sales.

It’s interesting to think that in the dawn of convenience foods (aka the mid-20th century), when saving time in the kitchen was important to busy families, and the exciting novelty of pre-packaged foods was all the rage, that Craig Claiborne was still interested in adding a homemade ketchup recipe to his cookbook. When 1960s home cooks could have easily run out and purchased an already prepared bottle of trusted, reliable Heinz Ketchup and called the day done for a lot less time and expense, it’s interesting that the New York Times treated this ordinary, taken-for-granted, always-around condiment with a little more reverence.

In preparing this recipe, I now understand that ketchup is an elevated culinary sauce, perfected over centuries. It’s not just something you slather on your burger or your hot dog or dip your french fries into without thinking. It shouldn’t be something you buy in bulk at the grocery store with the same level of enthusiasm as buying a roll of paper towels. Homemade ketchup requires time and a unique blend of ingredients to bring out all the flavors. It’s a condiment worthy of attention and of appreciation. When it is homemade, it offers a gourmet flourish to your summer grill menu and adds a bit of zesty flavor to your palate and your plate. There is also something freeing about knowing that, should we ever run across The Great Tomato Ketchup Shortage of 2021 again, we could easily whip up a batch ourselves if we needed to. I guess this means that I need to learn how to can. So that I can go ahead and make those eight pints and have a reserve in my pantry. This homemade recipe will spoil you in that way. It will turn your attention away from all those other commercial ketchups. There is truth in the saying. Yes, homemade ketchup tastes better than a store-bought version.

I hope you love this ketchup recipe just as much. As always, if you make it please share your thoughts in the comment section below. And if you’d like to experiment with another homemade condiment, try this wonderful Danish mustard recipe here.

Cheers to Craig, Eleanor and tomato growers all over the globe for adding so much flavor to our summer days.

Summer Dinner with Sunset: Cold Roast Beef with Whipped Horseradish circa 1962

Published on July 29, 2017July 28, 2017 by In The Vintage Kitchen1 Comment

In 2018, a sunset celebrates its 120th birthday. No, it’s not the anniversary of the blushing pastel sky that shadows overhead just before night (that’s as old as time). And it is not the commemoration of Billy Wilder’s movie Sunset Blvd (that was 1950) nor the anniversary of the actual naming of the boulevard known as Sunset (that was the early 1900’s). Instead, we are talking about the kind of sunset that stacks up on your coffee table – Sunset Magazine – one of the oldest, longest running magazines in American publishing history.

For over a century, this West Coast-centric lifestyle publication has been entertaining readers with outdoor recreation, travel, home design, gardening and food-focused articles steeped in the natural beauty of the United States’ Pacific side. Originally produced in 1898 to dispel myths about wild, wooly California, Sunset magazine was created as a marketing and promotional piece for Southern Pacific Railways. Its goal was to encourage tourists to buy land in California so the railway could profit in transportation, tourism, and land ownership sales. By highlighting the natural beauty of the scenic coastline, the agreeable climate and the sophisticated resort towns of Southern California, in particular, early readers were introduced to the artistic side of the state through nature photography, regional literature, and poetic musings.

Sunset Magazine then, in 1898 (first issue!) and now (the current issue July, 2017)

The up and down decades of the 20th century brought many changes to the magazine’s content, format, and layout but throughout its long life, Sunset has always inspired readers to get outside and enjoy the natural landscape. The recipe we are featuring today involves just that – a nod towards a relaxed dinner geared for outdoor ease and feast enough for a dozen family members and friends. It is a perfect packer for the picnic basket or a set-it-and-leave-it sort of arrangement that yields plenty of time for firefly watching or sprinkler swimming or whatever your favorite summer pastimes include. It is a cold roast beef, cooked early in the amiable hours of the day, and then put away to chill in the fridge until hungry appetites demand to be fed.

The recipe comes from the 1962 Dinner Party Cook Book compiled by the editorial staff of Sunset Magazine. This very cool collection features a wide assortment of party menu recipes that coincide with big and small occasions throughout the year. Birthday parties, graduations, theme night dinners, and holidays are all tackled with a wealth of ingenuity and imagination in the menu planning department. Our cold roast beef fell under the theme of an Easy Summer Dinner, combining a selection of dishes that were cool to the palate and required little heating (other than baking the roast).

Temperatures have been heat-wavish here in the South reaching 100 degrees for the past week with even higher heat index numbers. This Easy Summer Dinner was just what we needed. The ease comes in a 24-hour red wine, onion and herb marinade and then a quick pop into the oven for 2-3 hours of cooking. Once it comes out of the oven it cools on the counter before heading to the fridge where it chills until dinner time. The benefits of this dish are many because the roast is large – big enough to feed up to 18 people – which means you could have a lot of leftovers depending on your party size. Here in the Vintage Kitchen, that meant practically a week of additional dinners plus extra for the freezer. From just one roast we made fajitas, beef pot pie, steak salad, stuffed peppers plus two extra nights of the actual recipe. Easy summer dinner indeed!

The recipe calls for a 5-6 lb rump roast which we substituted for a 4 lb. grass-fed beef rump roast. We like grass-fed beef the best because it’s healthier for humans and because it is a better lifestyle for the cows who forage on open pastures eating only natural grasses instead of being lumped together on feedlots eating only grain. If you try this recipe and incorporate grass-fed beef too, there are a couple of factors that need to be altered. Grass-fed beef cooks faster since it is much leaner than grain-fed beef so it’s important to pay attention to the roasting time. Instructions for both types of beef are included with the recipe here, depending on your own preferences. Other than that, this very easy dinner is as promised – very easy. And the whipped horseradish is the perfect accompaniment so definitely don’t forget it.

Sunset’s Beef A La Mode

(serves 12-18)

5 – 6 lb. rump roast (or 5-6 lb. grass-fed beef rump roast)

2 cups dry red table wine

1 onion, sliced

1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme

1/4 teaspoon crushed whole black pepper

1 bay leaf

Flour seasoned with salt and pepper

1/4 cup beef fat, shortening or oil

1 cup tomato puree

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/4 cup grated horseradish

Place the roast in a large bowl and cover with the wine, onion, thyme, black pepper and bay leaf. Marinate for 24 hours in the fridge, turning a few times throughout the marinade process.

After 24 hours, remove the meat from the marinade, setting the marinade aside for future use. Let the beef warm up to room temperature before patting it dry and dusting it all over with the flour/salt/pepper mixture.

In a Dutch Oven brown meat on all sides in the beef fat, shortening or oil. If you are using grass-fed beef do this step in a hot skillet with 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Sear meat about a minute per side on all sides.

Seared on all sides and ready for the oven.

Pour the marinade and the tomato puree in the Dutch oven, cover and bake at 350 degrees for 3-4 hours or until fork-tender. If you are using grass-fed beef, after searing, place in Dutch oven or a large casserole dish, add the marinade and tomato puree and top the roast with three pats of butter. Cover and bake at 425 for 20 minutes then turn the oven off and keep the roast in there for two hours, being careful to not open the oven door for the entire time.

You want the internal temperature of your roast to be about 135 degrees when finished. Once your roast is done, remove it from the oven and let it rest at room temperature until it is cool. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

While your roast is cooling, in a small bowl, whip together the sour cream, mayonnaise, and horseradish in a bowl. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Once dinner time arrives, thinly slice the roast beef, arrange on plates and drizzle with the horseradish mixture.

The original 1962 recipe included side dishes of hominy, watercress salad and sesame seed crusted toast points. While those sound lovely we skipped those dishes and served our grass fed roast beef with a simple side salad of mixed greens tossed in a homemade lime vinaigrette. It was simple and complimentary and easy. The words of the day!

If you time your dinner and your day right, you’ll be able to experience two sunsets at once. One a feast for your eyes, the other a feast for your belly. Hope you find this vintage recipe as effortless as we did.

Explore 61 other 1960’s themed menus in The Dinner Party Cook Book available in the Vintage Kitchen Shop here.

New to grass-fed beef cooking? Visit the website of our favorite grass-fed beef vendor at the Nashville Farmers Market and learn more.

Cheers to easy summer nights and to the good friends that fill them.

Saturday in the Kitchen: Chive Pesto

Published on June 14, 2014January 14, 2018 by In The Vintage Kitchen4 Comments

Ms. Jeannie’s chive plant reseeded itself from last year (good little plant!) and this summer has decided to go at growing with passion. When the stalks reached 2 feet, it was time for a hair cut.

Not wanting to waste any bit of these little delicates Ms. Jeannie searched high and low for a recipe that would incorporate cupfuls of chives instead of just bits of sprinkles here and there. And surprisingly, it was harder to find than you might think – until she stumbled upon the Garden for A House blog and Kevin’s unique spin on classic pesto. Instead of traditional basil as the main green, he used chives! Perfect!

Ms. Jeannie got to work grinding nuts…

next came the garlic, olive oil, Parmesan cheese, and four big cups of freshly chopped chives…

She whirled all that together in her little food chopper until it formed a nice consistency – chunky but spreadable. And voila! Dinner was on its way to being done. You could use this pesto lots of different ways – Kevin recommended fish, toasty baguette slices or pasta.

Ms. Jeannie went the pasta route…

and tossed it all together in the vintage bowl that she has for sale in her etsy shop. This bowl gets lots of attention but no one has claimed it for a treasure yet. Ms. Jeannie thought it might help if she incorporated some “action” shots and indeed those little yellow flowers do look pretty against all that bright green!

After tossing, she let the pasta/pesto mixture sit for about 20 minutes to cool down to room temperature and let the pasta soak up the sauce. Needless to say this was all in all an effortless dinner – with just under 15 minutes from prep to finish. And Ms. Jeannie accomplished two feats in one – substantially cutting back the onion patch and making dinner. Oh the ease of the summer lifestyle.

Chive Pesto

(makes about 1.5 cups)

4 cups freshly chopped chives

2 oz. nuts (Ms. Jeannie used peanuts. Kevin used sliced almonds. But really you can use any kind you want)

1 cup Parmesan cheese, grated

1 garlic clove

1/4 cup olive oil

Chop your nuts first in a food processor or blender and then add the rest of the ingredients and mix until combined. You may need to add more olive oil for a looser pesto, depending on the type of consistency you like or how you plan to serve it. And you may want to add salt or pepper at the end – although Ms. Jeannie added neither – the cheese made it savory enough and the garlic added quite a bit of spicy flavor.

A great BIG thank you to fellow blogger Kevin for his ingenious recipe and for helping Ms. Jeannie not waste one little bit of her summer garden harvest. Stop by and read Kevin’s blog here.

And if that serving bowl caught your eye, you can find it here in Ms. Jeannie’s shop!

The next herb to tackle is the oregano. If anybody has any great recipes for oregano enmasse please comment below! In the meantime, happy garden cooking!