Red sauce (ketchup? barbecue?)

I've experimented with making my own ketchup and barbeque sauce. Of course, store bought is fine as long as it's used as a condiment. I just prefer lower salt and sugar in mine. Anyway I decided I like a sort of combination of the two. Here are the ingredients I used today:

That's salt-free mustard, fire-roasted tomatoes, garlic powder, chipotle powder, onion powder, apple-balsamic vinegar and a baked beet on the right! The beet adds sweetness and a little thickness when blended up. If you want a different sweetener, you can use maple syrup or dates, whatever you wish. The Chipotle adds a smoky flavor but I have to be careful not to add too much because it's hot. Another thing I thought of after snapping the picture smoked paprika, which I also added. I blended this all up, then froze in an ice cube tray!

Then put the cubes in a ziplock bag and back in the freezer. Now I have individual servings whenever I want. They thaw quickly in the microwave. Here's today's lunch with the red sauce as a dipper for my potato fries.

barb's ketchup

This is inspired by cathy's ketchup but that is too thick and apple-y for my tastes.   so here's my version.

Ingredients:
1 6-oz can tomato paste
1/2 16-oz can tomatoes, drained mostly (I use the rest of the can to make burgers with)
1  Tbsp high-quality balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup apple cider or juice

blend in high-speed blender until smooth.   I pour into 4 bowls to freeze.   one bowl lasts two meals for me, allowing for a generous sugar-free, salt-free portion in each.

Cathy's Ketchup

This is really good.  I wrote a post yesterday on an instant ketchup that is definitely good in a pinch.  That got me curious to try Cathy's recipe.  It's really good.  I thought the apple would make it not taste like ketchup but it's great.  I didn't have lemon so I used fancy-pants apple infused balsamic vinegar.  I suspect that's even better!  

Now the only problem is, it makes more than I need for a day or 2, and what if it gets old before I'm done with it?  I decided to divide it into two bowls and freeze one.  I'm not sure how it will be after thawing.  I'll find out soon enough!

Instant homemade ketchup

I'm finding that I don't like much added salt.  I bought some sugar free ketchup but it has 70 mg sodium per Tbsp.  That doesn't seem like much but if I have 2 or 3, I notice the effect--my fingers swell up and I find that a little disturbing.   Now Cathy Fisher has a home-made ketchup recipe here.  I will try this sometime because it does look good.  But in the meantime, if you need a quick ketchup fix in a small amount, and don't want salt or sugar, here's an option.  It only has 2 ingredients!    You need a fancy-pants vinegar, probably apple-flavored.  Here are some websites with fancy-pants vinegars:  Cuisine Perel (they make the best d'angou pear vinegar),  Olive tap,  Vom Fass.  The other is a tube of tomato paste.  Those are nice because you can use small portions and the rest doesn't go bad.   Mix them together, add a little water.

Tonight, housemate was serving up a meatloaf dinner to her brother.  I was able to eat pretty much the same dinner, just subsituting my veggie burger (with ketchup and mustard) for the meatloaf and topping my potato with soy yogurt and chives.   It was fun. I had to pass on the dessert though (cake and ice cream).  

Speaking of veggie burgers, fat-free vegan just posted one that looks really good:  http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2012/09/savory-lentil-mushroom-burgers.html

At the bottom of that post are links to some of her other burgers.