Homemade Condiments Anyone?

I have started to consider making some of my own condiments. Specifically ketchup and chocolate syrup. Yes, I realize that is a strange combination.

It all started with the ketchup. As I've mentioned before I'm trying to eliminate high fructose corn syrup from our diet. Well, my beloved Heinz ketchup has high fructose corn syrup. Since it is the only ketchup I will eat, my only options are to either give up ketchup or try making some myself. So I looked around for a ketchup recipe and I found this one. It doesn't seem very hard and the recipe does have good reviews.

When I told my husband about my intention to try making ketchup, he was not thrilled. Now, to be fair, his issue with it is time; specifically, when will I find time to make things like ketchup (which we can buy cheap) when my schedule is already overly full? I figure I can whip up a batch Saturday when I do my baking. I plan to try this weekend and see how it goes. Am I being overly optimistic? Possibly.

The idea for the chocolate syrup came about this morning because of the yogurt. My daughter likes my vanilla yogurt, but she doesn’t care for the mango yogurt I made her. So hubby suggested making some chocolate yogurt using chocolate syrup. I found a recipe for chocolate syrup here. Again, it sounds easy, but I don’t know how much we would use it. We just don’t use a lot of chocolate syrup around here. I have all the ingredients, so I am tempted to try it this weekend if time allows.

So, is it too much? I feel like we would be getting a much better quality food product with a little bit of effort from myself. Really, I just want my family to be able to eat good quality food without all the additives and crazy chemicals that you find in packaged food anymore. When I make it myself I know what’s in there and we can adjust the taste to our preferences. But is the time I spend working on things like this instead of spending time with my daughter really worth it? I already feel like I get so little time with her; yet I also value her health and I hate feeding her foods with all those chemicals and additives in them. There is no clear answer here. For now I’m just trying to find that balance that works for us and hoping I don’t drive us all crazy in the mean time.