Homemade Pickle Relish

Made some sweet pickle relish recently, and tasted it last night. I'll never buy relish in the store again!!! This was a lengthy process, involving soaking the cucumbers, peppers and onions in salted ice water, then fresh ice water, and, finally, a vinegar-and-spice solution, before canning them. I was originally motivated by what I perceive as the deteriorating quality of the store-bought product, but when all was said & done, I realized there’s a nice side benefit – I’ve saved some money, too!

Over half of the cucumbers were home-grown (a little later in the season, they all will be). The rest were bought at the farmers market for less than $2. I used maybe $1.50 worth of red peppers, along with a couple of onions ($.50), 6 cups of vinegar (another $.50) and 2 cups of honey ($2). The canning jars were purchased on sale ($4.50). So, for a total investment of about $11, I have 9 jars of relish, which works out to about $1.22 each, including the jar. However, as I reuse them constantly, I prefer not to include the cost of the jars in the equation. Sooo, excluding the jars, the cost drops to $6.50 total, or $.72 per jar. Either way, a significant savings over the $2.25 I usually pay at the market – and, though it's thinner (store-bought relish is thickened slightly), the quality of the relish is definitely superior!

I’ll need to do another batch or two over the course of the summer (need a couple dozen or so, to get us through until the next cucumber crop). I make it a habit to taste things as I go along, and I thought I'd need to tinker with the recipe, as I didn't quite like the balance of flavors, even after it was heated in the vinegar solution. However, once it's canned, it comes out perfect!! It has all the complexity of flavor that commercial pickle relish used to have.

And the best thing about this recipe, unlike some pickle recipes, is that it doesn’t need to “cure” – once the jars come out of the canner, the relish is ready to use.

Also on my radar screen is dill relish, though I probably only need about a dozen half-pint jars for the year. Although I usually use it only for tuna and potato salad, I might make it a couple dozen, just for good measure. The recipe in the Ball book looks like a good one.

Another thing I’m looking forward to doing: A few jars of dainty little baby dills, if I can accumulate enough that size at the same time. Or maybe baby dills & baby carrots. Or baby dills, baby carrots & baby onions. We do have some okra coming in; that will be nice pickled, as well… Read more!

Blackberry Jam; Homemade Sweet Pickle Relish

I've been thinking in the back of my mind lately that I'd really like to make some blackberry jam. I have jars and jars of strawberry, apricot, even somewhat off-the-path things like cherry and kiwi. But I've been thinking it'd be really nice to make something special, and blackberry jam would definitely qualify. Funny how these things work -- as I was in town for my haircut today, my hairdresser mentioned that her mother recently bought some blackberries at a stand nearby. I resolved to hit that particular fruit stand (a new one for me) on my way out of town, and was delighted to find that they still had a few of the purplish-black berries. Scooped them up, along with some plums for a sauce I spotted in the Ball book, and headed home with my loot.

A couple of hours later, 7 half-pint jars of the rich, speckly purple jam are cooling on the counter. And, with the lovely ripe cherries I also bought at the stand, I'll be able to scrape together one more batch -- cherry-berry, this time. I'm very glad to have a good selection of candy flavoring oils on hand -- they can really round out the flavor nicely if the jam doesn't quite sparkle on its own. (And why would I bother with jam that doesn't?!)

Finally beginning to harvest a few pickling cucumbers from our garden. I've been inspired to try this because the pickles I've bought lately (only brand I can find at the "big box" grocery store) seem to have a distinctly chemical scent and flavor to them. We use a good bit of sweet pickle relish in salad dressing, so I need to make a couple dozen pints over the course of the summer. Don't quite have enough cucumbers ready on our own yet, so I bought some at the farmers market to round out the first batch. Found several promising looking recipes online; will share that experience in a future post. Read more!