Canning Cookbook- Sweet Pepper Relish

It's the time of year that I love- time to use up LOTS of stuff as our gardens all come to an end for the season. If you remember, I love going to a local you-pick farm and loading up on the beautiful vegetables they grow every year- cucumbers for pickles, tomatoes by the ton and sweet Gypsy peppers. I never had a Gypsy pepper until I tried them from the farm. They are a sweet pepper, not as big as a bell pepper, but very similar in flavor. Ripe peppers are usually yellow but if you can leave them on the plant long enough they turn into gorgeous orange and red tones. I love spending time in the fields (they really are farm fields filled with vegetables there) picking peppers and tomatoes in the sunshine. 

Last year I lugged home a good forty to fifty pounds of gypsy peppers. I spent my evenings dicing and spreading the little pepper cubes on dehydrator trays and ended up with several quarts of dried diced peppers. Throughout the winter months, when a single bell pepper can cost as much as two dollars in the grocery store, I can just rehydrate a couple tablespoons of diced pepper and continue with my recipe. No worrying about keeping fresh peppers in the veggie drawer, no cleaning, no prep- just open a jar. They are so handy! 

Another great way to preserve those beautiful garden peppers is to make relish. Sweet peppers or hot, the choice is yours. Relishes are easy to make, don't require a pressure canner, and make great gifts during the holiday season. Bell peppers, and gypsy peppers, are always available in a variety of colors and have such a delicious sweet flavor they make a great condiment for sandwiches, cold meat plates, and more.

This pepper relish recipe comes from the NCHFP website. If you aren't familiar with this website I encourage you to check it out. There is so much information housed there, from safety to basic recipes to salsas, sauces and soups plus complete and detailed instructions on how to safely can foods at home. In this recipe you will see the peppers broken down by color. You can use any combination of bell peppers or other sweet peppers as long as you do not exceed the total number of cups of peppers. Throw a hot pepper or two in there if you like a little heat. 5 cups of peppers is about 7 or 8 large bell peppers, or about 3 or 4 pounds before grinding (remove seeds and stems!!) If you use Gypsy peppers you will need......a lot more. These pictures come from the kitchen of Suzanne Ledford, a home food preserver from Canton, North Carolina, who has done a fantastic job. Her relish is made with yellow bell peppers and looks flawless and beautiful in those jars.  Let's make some relish!

Suzanne's relish looks beautiful made with yellow bells.

Sweet Pepper Relish
adapted from the NCHFP 

5 cups ground green bell peppers
5 cups ground red bell peppers
1 1/2 cups ground onion (about 3 medium)
2 1/2 cups apple cider vinegar or white vinegar-5% acidity
2 cups sugar
4 teaspoons pickling salt
4 teaspoons mustard seed

Prepare a boiling water bath canner and pint or half pint jars. NO quarts !!!

Combine relish ingredients in a large stockpot. Bring the mixture to boil over high heat. Reduce heat and cook for 30 minutes, stirring often to prevent sticking and scorching.

Suzanne has her jars ready and heated, relish simmering away,
and look at the time- that was P.M.!! 

Ladle the hot relish into hot jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Wipe rims, fix lids and rings, and place in boiling water bath canner. Process for 10 minutes. Allow the jars to cool undisturbed 12 to 24 hours before checking the seals and removing the rings.

It's a little bit bittersweet to know that this year's garden will be my last garden at The Little Lake House. This year we had terrible luck with our plants so maybe it's just as well. My adventures as a small town resident are drawing to a close as I prepare and pack up and get ready to head back to the city after nearly five years as a small town girl. It had it's ups and downs for certain, but I'm glad I was able to have the experience.

Canning Cookbook- Jalapeno Hot Dog Relish

This summer at The Little Lake House we included several different hot pepper varieties in the garden. Not only do we love spicy foods but so do many of our friends and we love sharing our spicy goodies. Hot peppers have created some wonderful relishes, pickles and salsa around here, and a few experiments in mustard and hot sauce for chicken wings. 

Now while we do often grow many of the super hot peppers like ghost chilies and Trinidads, most of those are just too hot for the majority of our friends. Jalapenos and Serranos are very popular choices for spicy recipes that won't melt your face off quite as bad. Removing the seeds and webby membrane and you scale back the heat significantly, making jalapenos, especially, perfect for pickling, candying, adding to pickles and kicking up the impact of relish recipes.

While most peppers find their way into salsas I like to find creative ways to use them in recipes outside of the realm of spicy/hot/Mexican/salsa. Being a fairly new relish convert, just seemed natural to me that the peppers make their way into a relish recipe! This relish is really delicious and has loads of flavor- perfect for topping a grilled brat. Like most relishes, this recipe starts the night before, tossing the veggies with salt and chilling overnight to bring out the excess water. This step can be skipped if you are like me, and can't wait to get it in the jars.

Fresh from the garden cucumbers make the best relish

Spicy Pepper Pickle Relish

6 cups cucumber,  shredded or finely chopped

4 cups jalapeno, finely chopped*

4 red bell peppers, finely chopped

2 large red onions, finely chopped

2 tablespoons salt

2 1/2 cups apple cider vinegar

2 1/2 cups sugar

4 teaspoons celery seed

2 tablespoons mustard seed

2 tablespoons dried dill

2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

* Remove seeds and membranes to keep the heat level down.

Toss the vegetables with the salt in a large bowl. Cover and refrigerate overnight. The next day, rinse and drain thoroughly. Set aside.

In a large stockpot combine the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Add the rinsed and drained vegetables. Return to boil and simmer for 10 minutes.

Pack the relish into hot canning jars to 1/2 inch headspace. Wipe the rims and fix lids and rings. Process in a boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes. Remove and allow to cool overnight before checking seals.

If this recipe sounds familiar to you, it should! It's a very close variation of my all time favorite zucchini relish, with different vegetables. The cucumber stays a little cruncher than zucchini and if you chop it instead of shredding it, you retain even more texture. That crunchier texture is the perfect topping for burgers, dogs, brats, sandwiches of all kinds. The jalapeno gives it a nice heat without being too mouth-melting.

Canning Cookbook- Who planted 10 zucchini anyway?

Ahhhhh zucchini, that wondrous crazy vegetable that goes from blossom to BLIMP in 24 hours. We all at one point in our lives, as a cook or gardener, have had a love/hate relationship with it. We love the tender baby zucs we can halve or quarter and throw on the grill, and we love the big monster zucs that we shred and make delicious baked goods from, while at the same time we absolutely loathe dealing with those big monsters, and zucchini overload when the office master gardener shows up with yet another big bag full to share. This just might be ME this summer, since I got the wise idea to plant ten, yes ten, zucchini in the garden- and it's just The Chef and I at home. We do, after all, love fresh zucchini, and we hate to waste perfectly good food.

By the time summer is nearing the end, even though those plants are STILL producing, most of us are pretty tired of trying to use the crazy things in dinner night after night. Zucchini bread and cakes and muffins fill the freezer. What else can you do? Make relish!!

When it comes to canning recipes, everything BUT pickle relish is something I want to make. I already make pickles, I don't want to do pickle relish too. I like trying different vegetables in relishes though, like radish relish, corn relish, and a carrot relish I'm trying to figure out. It's just natural to me that zucchini should fit the bill in relish recipes. It has a mild flavor on it's own, much like cucumbers do, and should meld well with relish flavors. Almost every canning cookbook has a zucchini relish of some kind. Do a little research and reading and you will find one with the right blend of flavors for you. I tend to like "peppery" and hot spicy foods and make relishes and sauces that reflect that. This time, however, I think I'll go with a dill relish and see how that turns out. So let's get busy with Summer Zucchini Relish.

You will need:

12 cups finely chopped UNPEELED zucchini

4 cups finely chopped onion

2 finely chopped bell peppers, one green, the other red or orange

4 tb canning or kosher salt

Combine all vegetables in large mixing bowl, sprinkle with salt, toss to mix. Cover and refrigerate overnight. The next day, rinse and drain thoroughly.

In a large stock pot combine:

• 2 1/2 cups vinegar (I prefer apple cider but white is ok- 5% acidity)
• 2 1/2 cups sugar
• 4 tsp celery seed
• 2 tb mustard seed (I use one each of yellow and brown)
• 2 tb dill seed
• 2 tb dried dill weed or 4-5 tb fresh
• 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Bring ingredients to boil. Add vegetables and simmer for 15 minutes. 

Pack hot mixture into prepared pint or half-pint jars with 1/2" headspace. Adjust lids and rings. Process in boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Remove and allow jars to cool, check seals.

Because this is a pickled product, you will want to let it mellow and let the flavors meld. You can also switch out yellow summer squash for some or all of the zucchini if that's what you have an abundance of. 

Recipes like this always look so pretty in the jars, and I can't wait to enter them in the county fairs. Sometimes that unusual relish combination gives you an edge over the same old relish recipes that have been entered for decades. I hope you will give this recipe a try- I'm sure you will love it.