Homemade Sweet Relish

Here is the wife's sweet relish. She made a bunch more yesterday and it reminded me some of y'all wanted her recipe.
Now keep in mind we do ours in large volumes so we had to break it down. The measurements are close enough.

12 - Cucumbers chopped to the size you like
6 - Cups of chopped onions
3 - Cups of chopped green bell peppers
3 - Cups of chopped red bell peppers
3/4 - Cup salt
10 1/2 - Cups of sugar, (yep, that's 10.5 cups of sugar)
3 - Tablespoons of celery seed
3 - Tablespoons of mustard seed
6 - Cups of cider vinegar

Combine cucumbers, onions and peppers in a large bowl. Sprinkle with salt and cover with cold water. Let stand for 2 hours.
Drain, rinse and drain again.
Combine sugar, spices and vinegar in a large pot, bring to a boil. Add drained vegetables and simmer for 10 minutes.
Pack hot relish into canning jars leaving 1/4" head space and remove bubbles.
Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

This makes about 18 to 20 pint jars. 

We don't hand chop all that. We use a food processor and pulse the bigger chunks to the size we like. You can also use a food grinder at it's largest setting to make it even easier. 

And that's it. It is one of the easiest ones we do. She also make hot sweet, dill, hot dill and pickles of all kinds. We also dehydrate the cucumbers with a little seasoning salt for a late night snack and to use in dishes later on.

Today the wife is canning her own Taco Sauce so I could bet this will be Taco Tuesday.


Talk to you tomorrow,
MDR

Wet and Soggy

The weather was not in my plans for this weekend. I knew there was a 90% chance of a wet three days but I looked at it as a 10% chance it would miss me and I would be able to get something done.

The unwanted house time while the internet was down did land me and the wife some indoor work time.
Along with Wee, BEB and Boppy, we all jumped in and started the mountainous task of making over 20 cases of Hot and Mild sauce. We did not get close to finished, but it was still fun. 


During some of the breaks in the weather we would go outside and work on the garden shades.
Last summer the gardens burn up and we can't have that two years in a row so shade is a must.
I used 16' cattle panels wired end to end to make 32'. Then bowed them up and over three raised beds. The beds are 16' long, 4' wide with a 4' walk between them. Both cattle panels nailed to each side bowed up to 10' tall in the middles. It took 8 panels to cover all three beds making a hoop house effect. On the panels I will wire on Lattice work. I have 8-4'X8' sheets and that will shade the Mid day to West evening sun.
I will post better pics later but the rain dampened the completion of this little project.