Jennifer Lambert

A Sacred Balance

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Sweet Pickle Relish

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Our garden has done just wonderfully this year!

I planted so many cucumber plants and seeds since the last couple years weren’t that great for us.

I may have overdone it a little.

I have two cucumber patches to see how they would do with different environments.

I have a box in my backyard with a trellis (far right) and I planted some burpless seedlings and some very cheap seeds.

I also have a front side garden box and I let them climb up the fence.

I became overwhelmed with so many cucumbers.

I’ve made sweet and spicy pickles.

I’ve made dill pickle spears and coins.

I’ve made creamy cucumber salad and sliced cucumbers for green salads.

So, I still had too many cucumbers.

I decided to try to make sweet pickle relish.

Aaron’s dad and grandma made this over two decades ago and I’m on my last jar!

We can’t find her recipe. She was a true country cook and did most things by memory.

I found some recipes online but none were just quite right.

My favorite relish recipes are here.

I shredded the cucumbers, bell peppers, and onion in my food processor.

I salted the shreds for a couple hours and let drain into a bowl.

I combined the vinegar and sugar to a pot and brought to a boil, then added the relish mix to simmer for about fifteen minutes.

Some recipes call for white vinegar and others for apple cider vinegar. I used white, but I may see what apple cider vinegar does next time.

I added the hot relish to my sterilized jars with a clean ladle, then did a boiling water bath for about 20 minutes.

I mixed in a lot of spices and some turmeric for color. Some recipes call for spicier or more veggies or red bell pepper. I can mix it up and do something different next time.

I so think one whole cup of sugar was too much for eight cucumbers. I can lessen it next time.

I have some leftover relish that didn’t fit in my jars in my fridge to enjoy right now!

5 from 3 votes
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Sweet Pickle Relish

Servings 4 canning jars

Ingredients

  • 8-10 medium cucumbers
  • 2-3 medium green bell peppers
  • 1 small sweet onion
  • 4 T kosher salt
  • 1/2-2/3 cup white sugar
  • 2 cups white vinegar
  • 1 t celery seed
  • 1 T mustard seed
  • 1 t coriander seed
  • 1/2 t coarse black pepper
  • 1/4 t turmeric

Instructions

  1. I partially peeled some of the tougher skin of the cucumbers and cut off the ends.

  2. Grate or use a food processor to shred the cucumbers, peppers, and onion.

  3. Scrape the shreds into a colander and add salt and some ice cubes. I let the colander drain into a bowl for two hours.

  4. Combine vinegar and sugar and bring to a boil.

  5. Fold in shreds to sweet vinegar and mix thoroughly. Simmer for about 15-20 minutes.

  6. Ladle into sterilized jars. Place lids and rings on jars. Water bath with boiling water for 20 minutes for seal.

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Canning Applesauce

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Our neighbor across the street offered us as many apples as we could pick!

I think we got enough.

We made applesauce!

We cored and sliced apples and boiled them down with some water. This can also be done in a slow cooker.

You can add spices like cinnamon or nutmeg, sugars, or leave it plain.

We love our KitchenAid mixer and attachments!

Look at that lovely golden applesauce.

The grinder spits out the peels and gives us smooth applesauce. So much less work!

We boil it down a little more. You can adjust any seasonings at this point.

We poured it into jars and did a water bath canning. They all popped!

This will last us a long time!

Check out our super simple applesauce recipe:

5 from 2 votes
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Applesauce

Ingredients

  • 12 lbs apples, peeled, cored, quartered (about 30-35)
  • 1-2 cups water
  • 4 T lemon juice
  • 1-3 cups sugar optional
  • 1/4 cup cinnamon optional

Instructions

  1. Combine apples with just enough water to prevent sticking in a large stainless steel saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat and boil gently, stirring occasionally, for 5 to 20 minutes, until apples are tender. Remove from heat and let cool slightly, about 5 minutes.

  2. Transfer apples, working in batches, to a food mill or a food processor fitted with a metal blade and purée until smooth.

  3. Return apple purée to saucepan. Add sugar, if using, and lemon juice. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring frequently to prevent sticking. Maintain a gentle boil over low heat while filling jars.

  4. Ladle hot applesauce into hot, clean jars leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Wipe rim. Center lid on jar. Apply band until fit is fingertip tight.

  5. Process jars in a boiling water canner for 20 minutes. Remove jars and cool. Check lids for seal after 24 hours. Lid should not flex up and down when center is pressed.

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Canning Tomato Sauce

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Fresh tomatoes warm from the sunny garden are a favorite scent and flavor.

I miss my garden with Roma and Marzano tomatoes from my Utah garden.

We had so many tomatoes that year, we taught ourselves how to can tomato sauce so we had that fresh delicious flavor in the dead of winter.

Now we buy the tomatoes, on sale, ready to sauce, at local farmers markets.

We love this slow cooker marinara.

It’s super easy and my daughter is the resident marinara maker the last two years! Here she is last year, making sauce.

We cook the tomatoes and other vegetables with dried spices in the slow cooker for about 12 hours. Fresh spices are great for finishing recipes, but they become bitter when cooked down. We reduce it if it’s too thin. Sometimes, I adjust the flavor by adding a little more sugar or some lemon juice.

We then process it with our KitchenAid attachments and water bath can it.

Super simple and we use it on pizza, as a base for pasta sauces, and in other recipes.

We can never have too much!

Thanks to Ball canning for all the lovely jars!

5 from 3 votes
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Slow Cooker Marinara

Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 12 hours
Total Time 12 hours 5 minutes
Servings 6 cups

Ingredients

  • 8 large tomatoes quartered
  • 1/2 sweet onion roughly chopped
  • 6 cloves garlic
  • 3 T olive oil
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 2 t basil
  • 1 t oregano
  • 1 t marjoram
  • 1 t sea salt
  • 1/2 t black pepper
  • 1.5 t sugar or honey
  • 2 t Balsamic vinegar

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients in slow cooker and set on low for 12 hours. Your kitchen will smell amazing!
  2. Process in batches in a food processor and strain through a food mill to get rid of peels and seeds – or use the handy dandy KitchenAid attachment.
  3. If the sauce is too thin, we reduce it (thicken) in a big chili or stock pot on the stovetop for about 30 minutes to an hour. I adjust seasoning at this time too.
  4. Freeze sauce in manageable amounts in zipper bags or plastic containers – or use jars in a bath canner.

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Canning and Preserving with Kids

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Our tomatoes are all done after the frost this weekend!

We did some applesauce, salsa, and tomato sauce canning with the kids.

Tori loves to help in the kitchen. She helped Dad chop tomatoes for salsa.

chopping tomatoes

He makes the best salsa! He grills the veggies first! After processing, we let the bowl sit in the fridge overnight before canning.

We have 3 big boxes of these lovely apples from our neighbor’s tree. We made applesauce!

We love our Kitchenaid mixer and its attachments that make life so much easier!

The kids taste-tested this applesauce and said it was fine without any added sugar. Super!

This is just from one box. We have lots more work ahead of us! We’re going to make apple pie filling and apple butter too.

I also have some orders for apple cake from some church friends. It’s so healthy with 3 sticks of butter! Hey, I’m from Georgia, y’all. We love butter!

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Garden Bounty

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A garden update.

Tori loves the garden. She’s the only one Dad can trust out there without supervision. She loves to go check the beans and the tomatoes and she knows when and how to pick everything. She’s learning so much!

She was excited to help prep the beans for dinner and freezing.

Alex was thrilled to sample our first watermelon.

Watermelon

He does like watermelon. He calls it “little lemon.” It took me a while to understand and he got very frustrated with me. sigh

We have pickled LOTS of cucumbers.

We have frozen green beans.

And we have some beautiful tomatoes – Roma, cherry, and an heirloom. They’re delicious.

We’re getting overrun by yellow squash. We have frozen lots of it. We have sautéed it, casserole’d it, grilled it, and given lots away. We’re almost sick of it!

We have onions drying in the cellar.

We have canned blackberry jam and tomato sauce.

Soon, it will be apple season and we’ll make applesauce and apple butter!

Gardening is really hard work!

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