Home Is Where The Heart Is

One of the things I've grown fond of while living a healthier lifestyle is making everything from scratch. I hate buying canned goods.. you never really know what's in there.. or maybe that's just my trust issues manifesting themselves. Either way, the only canned good in my apartment is a can of tomato paste, and eventually I'd like to make that from scratch too.

I've done a lot of experimenting in the past week from my own dressing recipe to tahini to homemade ketchup.

Before making tahini myself, I'd never had it before.. never tasted store-bought. Therefore, I had no baseline to go by as to how it should really taste.. I think I did something wrong. It tastes pretty bitter. Other than the bitterness, it DOES have a good flavor.. just that bitter aftertaste.. I'm wondering if maybe I over toasted my sesame seeds? I'm not sure, but I still used it to make a " goddess dressing" that I kept reading about through the blogs that I frequent.

Once again, never tried the store bought version of this stuff. Because of the bitterness of my tahini, I had to add a tablespoon of maple syrup. After doing that, it actually tastes pretty good. It has a very unique taste, and at first I wasn't sure if I liked it. It's one of those things though where the more I ate it, the more I liked it and wanted more.

I still think I prefer the taste of my own dressing creation: Curry Banana Vinaigrette. It isn't quite as universal as the goddess dressing - you can't just eat it with any veggie. For example, I found that it doesn't taste good with tomatoes, but it tastes great with broccoli. The flavor of this dressing is amazing though, and it oddly looks identical to honey mustard dressing.

Don't be fooled though! It tastes nothing like honey mustard dressing. It's very sweet, with a little tang, and a lot of deliciousness.

Curry Banana Vinaigrette

[makes about 3/4c]

1 banana

2T red wine vinegar
2T olive oil
1T maple syrup
1T curry powder
1t garlic powder
1t onion powder

Blend all ingredients in a blender or food processor! Voila!

This dressing wasn't my only discovery of the week!

Homemade ketchup! I saw a few recipes for this online.. boy do they vary a lot. So I used what I had on hand and took bits and pieces from different recipes.. and added my own secret ingredient!

Yes! Worcestershire sauce! Okay, I admit that I'm really bad at keeping secrets, but I seriously think this added an awesome taste to this recipe. The only comment I have to make is that if you decide to recreate this recipe, you might want to reduce the sugar. It's quite sweet, which I don't mind because I have the biggest sweet tooth ever, but some people might find it TOO sweet... crazy people, that is.

Delicious Ketchup

[makes about 3c]

4 medium tomatoes, pureed

1/2c apple cider vinegar

2/3c packed brown sugar [maybe reduce to 1/2c if you prefer less sweet]

2-3 cloves of garlic, depending on size, minced

1 red onion, chopped

2-3 small celery sticks, chopped

2T Worcestershire sauce [The not-so-secret secret ingredient!]

1T olive oil

1t cinnamon

1t allspice

1t ground mustard

1. Begin by heating the olive oil in a pot, and saute the onion with the garlic until the onion is all soft.

2. Add all the rest of the ingredients!

3. Simmer until the mixture becomes a nice thick sauce-like consistency. This takes about an hour. Stir occasionally, but once you get near the end of that hour, stir more frequently so it doesn't burn!

Go forth, my friends! Make something homemade this week! A dressing, sauce, condiment, whatever! It's definitely worth it, they taste so much better made from scratch. :)