Relish the Possibilities

Summer’s bounty has arrived, and I, like many others who have a garden, am trying to figure out what to do with some of the veggies that I have oodles of.

As I have mentioned before, this is a bumper cucumber year. I have already tried my hand at refrigerator pickles. Now, I have decided on Dill Relish — that way I can also put to use a lot of that dill that has gone to seed. I have made Sweet Veggie Relish in the past, but never dill. So here are some pics of my experiment.

The recipe calls for 8lbs of cucumbers. We have so many, that I opted to double that — 16 lbs it is! I also made a couple of other changes — fresh dill seed instead of dried and slicing cukes instead of pickling. We use what we have, right???

Next comes the grinding. A food processor tends to make mush of the veggies, so I use an OLD SCHOOL grinder. We found this one at the Goodwill a few years back.

Next, wash and seed the cukes. If I had used the pickling variety, I could have avoided the seeding. At least the pigs will be happy with the innards.

Here’s the grinder in action. If you are curious, YES it takes FOREVER. If you choose to use one of these, don’t forget the bowl underneath. The dog loved the fresh cucumber water that results.

After letting the cukes sit in 2 quarts of water, 1 cup of salt, and 4 teaspoons of turmeric for 2 hours, it was time to cook the relish. I drained and rinsed the cukes in cold water. Then added 2 lbs of chopped onion, 1/3 cup of fresh dill seed, 2/3 cup sugar, and 2 quarts of vinegar. I didn’t think that was enough dill, so I sprinkled more over the top. Then I brought to a boil, simmered for 10 minutes then VOILA — RELISH.

After a 15 minute boiling-water canner — I had about 14 pints of dill relish. I think that should last us a while. A long while.

Here’s a view of our pantry. The sweet relish, apple butter, beets, and tomato sauce are from last year. Oh yeah, I processed 17 lbs of fresh tomatoes yesterday, too. I made salsa. Don’t be too impressed, I completely cheated and used Mrs. Wages packets. If you are curious, they are DELICIOUS. Use cider vinegar.

I started the relish and salsa canning around 10 AM. I finished around 4 PM.

We went out to dinner.