Ketchup, redux

Last weekend (namely Saturday) I decided to make ketchup again. Since I had knee surgery on September 3 and I'm still not walking, I decided not to start with whole tomatoes and have to cook them and mill them and whatnot. I started with cans of tomato puree, added the other ingredients, and cooked it down, and then canned it. Last night. More than 48 hours later.

I learned a few lessons from all this, lessons I hope that I will always remember:

1. DO NOT make more than one ketchup recipe at once. Unless you do it in separate pots. It took FOREVER to reduce.

and

2. DO NOT cook it over high heat at the beginning in an attempt to get things going faster. Unless you want to spend three days trying to clean burnt crap off the bottom of your pot.

The ketchup had a more complex flavor, either from being burned or from cooking for two days, or from both. But still. Never again.