I am so very blessed. I have been divorced for almost 4 years now and my in-laws have never stopped treating me as family, or loving me. My sweet MIL passed away a few months ago, and I have had the opportunity to spend some quality time with my FIL this last week. He had called and said that he had picked a bunch of green tomatoes and wanted to know if the kids and I would like to come help him make Green Tomato Relish. We jumped at the opportunity. It was a very fun and easy process, so I thought I would share it with you…
First, we got out my MIL’s cookbook.
Then we turned to the recipe.
We gathered up the ingredients and some helpers and then put them to work cutting up the tomatoes and onions.
They were pretty happy to cut up stuff! They nailed 24 quarts of tomatoes in record time! I am just so glad that they were able to add this to memories they will have for years to come!
They did an awesome job! We let Pa cut up the peppers… Isn’t it pretty?
Then we added the salt to leach out the water overnight. (This is a double batch, we did TWO double batches that day!)
Then we hung around and had dinner and watched the Detroit Tigers play some baseball. Pa was just humoring me though as he is a Cardinals fan…The next morning, we rinsed the salt off the veggies and put the liquid ingredients on to boil. Doesn’t the mustard seed look pretty?
Once it boiled, Pa poured it over the relish and we boiled it for about 5 minutes, or until it changed color.
After it changed color…So pretty, and smelled SO good!
We got 38 pints canned and sat back to watch another baseball game while listening to the glorious sound of “pop”, “pop”, “pop” from the kitchen as all the jars sealed. We also cut up another batch and managed to can 27 pints the next morning as well! This is similar to the Green Tomato Relish that the Catfish Hole serves with fish and hush puppies…we did GOOD!
Incidentally, Pa’s Cardinals made it to the World Series, but my Tigers fell short last night. However, I am looking forward to a couple evenings of watching baseball at Pa’s house while eating some good food!