"Safe" Cheesy Potato Chowder

This is a version of THIS potato soup that is safe for our entire family now. 
It is lacking corn, chicken bullion, and the canned cheese sauce that uses wheat, corn and soy.

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Soup Ingredients: 
3 slices bacon- all but burned
onion - minced
potatoes - peeled and cubed    (I do 1-2 potatoes per person, depending on size)
carrots - peeled and cut into coins     (I do 3-4 carrots)
1 part milk to 2 parts water
1 tsp Better Than Bullion for each cup water
minced garlic
black pepper
celery flakes
shredded cheddar, or other melty cheese (we used shredded cheddar, swiss, mozzarella and asiago)
chives

Thickening Sauce:

4 tbps heavy cream

2 tbsp tapioca starch

4 tbsp butter    - all mixed together for a gloppy paste

Instructions:

Cook the bacon in the soup pot. Set bacon aside for now. Pour off excess grease.
Put vegetables in pot, cover with liquid. Add spices and allow to boil/simmer til potatoes are soft. Smash a few times with a potato masher for a creamier texture.
Remove from heat and add the thickening "paste", mixing in thoroughly.
Add shredded cheese gradually, stirring and allowing it to melt.
Add chives and crumbled bacon, serve! 

Homemade Ketchup

A member of our house is dealing with some health issues and was advised to completely avoid some standard foods for a time. The list is long and one of the most critical foods to avoid is corn. Sigh. So even when we think of something "safe" we continually discover that actually, it has corn syrup or corn starch or corn fiber or or or or or!

Ketchup is one of those.
Every single bottle of ketchup in my local store had either corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, or both. Barbeque sauce was the same. (altho I think I did find one that was corn free, but it had something else on the list instead. Likely soy....) 

I found a recipe to make our own BBQ sauce, but it calls for ketchup. *face palm. 

Soo my husband found two recipes to make our own ketchup! 

The first one we tried is based on a recipe by America's Test Kitchen, buuut of course my husband changed some things up. That is what I am recording here: 
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Ingredients: 

1 6oz can tomato paste

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

6 tbsp sugar

1/4 cup water 

1 tsp table salt

1/4 tsp dry mustard

1/4 tsp onion powder

1/8 tsp granulated garlic

1/8 tsp paprika

Pinch ground allspice

Whisk all ingredients into a medium saucepan. Bring to low simmer, over medium low heat. Stir & scrape bottom of pan occasionally, about 10 minutes - until mixture thickens and measures about 1 cup.

Strain ketchup through a fine mesh strainer, extracting as much ketchup as possible. Discard solids.
Let cool to room temperature.  

Can be kept in a fridge for up to one week. 
            ...I intend to push that limit. As my husband points out, the only thing that "needs refridgerated" is after you open the can of tomato paste....

Anyway, we used this in the meatball recipe we enjoy, found HERE.
I doubled the batch.