Making Sweet Relish!

So, our garden has been abundant this season! We had collected around 9 lbs of cucumbers (which is a lot of cucumbers by the way) and I knew that I had to SOMETHING with it so that they wouldn't go to waste.  That's really my main goal with our garden; not wasting the food we're growing.

To that end, I grabbed some canning supplies, a premade mix of spices for making sweet relish, and pulled my big pots out from the back of the cabinets. I spent all yesterday morning working hard at the stove to make sure things would be good. The mix estimated that I'd get 5 quarts. I got 7.

So... merry christmas family! You're getting homemade relish for christmas!

First step after washing all the veggies was to chop the ends off and then cut the cucumber up into 1 inch pieces. You then food process those smaller pieces. My processor could only do 3-4 cucumbers at a time.

You then add pickling salt (special salt just for pickling, table salt and kosher salt will leave sediment, apparently), mix well, and let it chill in the fridge for 2 hours. After two hours, strain it to get rid of the liquid.

Then, you use white vinegar, sugar and the pickling spices and cook it for about 10 minutes at a simmer. Then you add the strained cucumber bits and boil for a bit.

Meanwhile, get the canning jars and lids nice and hot and fill them up with 1/2 headroom. Finger tighten the lids. Then set them back in the water bath and process for 15 minutes (we're pretty much at sea level, increase according to your altitude)

Pull them out to cool for 24 hours. Test the seal with the popper on the lid. If any can pop, refridgerate and use within a week. Otherwise, they have a shelf life of 1 year. I labeled the lids with the date and year so we know.

My next project is to make spaghetti sauce with all of our tomatoes and now that I've gone through one canning session with the equipment I have, I know what I need.  For one, a bigger pot. The other jars I have are all full pint size (the relish in in half pints) and my biggest pot will not get an adequate 1 inch of water above the pint jars. Also, the pot I ordered comes with a rack so I can drop the jars in all at once and it keeps them off the bottom of the pot to reduce clanking from the bubbles while boiling. I also snagged a bigger scoop for easier filling (I already have a funnel) and some dissolveable labels.

I'm excited!