Old world Ketchup and preserving hot peppers by fermentation

Since we are still harvesting lots of tomatoes my daughter helped me put together some homemade ketchup. There are numerous recipes out there on the internet for "fermented" ketchup.  You will need to decide what flavor you and your family like.  I combined a couple of recipes to come up with the recipe we used.  After mixing it all together we held a taste test and it was a thumbs up.  The flavor will have more depth after it ferment on the counter for a few days.

I should add that we didn't use canned tomato paste because of the issue of BPA in the cans.  I cored about 12 cups worth of tomatoes and pureed them in our vita-mix.  Then I cooked them down until they were very thick (ketchup consistency) which ended up being about 3 and 1/2 cups of paste.  I put the paste back into the vita-mix and added the following ingredients and blended well until smooth.

Old fashioned ketchup recipe:

3-4cups tomato paste
1 Stalk celery
1/2 c. raw Honey
4Tblsp. Apple cider Vinegar
2tsp sea salt
3 whole clove buds
1tsp fennel seeds
2 cloves garlic
1 Poblano peper with seeds taken out
1/2 c. fresh whey
(most recipes call for coriander seed or allspice....I could find neither in the spice cupboard so did without and the ketchup had great flavor.)

Once this is pureed smooth, place into a mason jar, cover with a little more fresh whey and let sit on the counter for 5-6 days.  Once done fermenting you can place it in the fridge.  This ketchup should be usable for 4 months or more.

While We had everything out, we made some fermented Jalapeno slices.  I cut them up in a gallon jar, added spring water, 1/2 cup of salt, and 1/2 cup of fresh whey.  They are sitting on the counter with the ketchup waiting to be bottled in a smaller container before we put them in the refrigerator.

This is some of the harvest we are still getting from the garden.  We used most of the tomatoes in the ketchup and had the rest in a dish we call fresh tomato, basil, Parmesan over pasta.  I cut up the jalapenos to ferment them and we will dice up the sweet peppers and freeze them to use in chili this fall and winter.