Zucchini Relish

It’s been a crazy busy week here, but I still feel like such a slacker.  The pictures for this post have been sitting in my camera for almost a week now.

Ya know what, real life happens.  Things come up, people get tired and here it is almost a week late and I’m finally getting around to sharing this beautiful relish with all of you.

One of my oldest and dearest friends generously offered….OK so maybe I begged, just a little…for some fresh garden veggies.  I was really in it for the Zucchini, but she was nice enough to send squash (we’ll talk about that later), and some tomatoes…Ummm, yeah those just ended up in my belly courtesy of a lovely  ‘mater’ sandwich.  Not much to talk about there.

This relish is super easy and is beautiful just hanging out in the bowl.  It’s great with hot dogs, but don’t limit yourself.  My husband likes it with his black eyed peas and honestly I just think it’s so darn pretty I look for ways to incorporate it into meals just so I can have the pretty little jar on the table, don’t judge.

Zucchini Relish

6 lg. zucchini
4 lg. onions
1 green bell pepper
1 red bell pepper
1/2 C. salt
1 sm. jar pimentos
3 1/2 C. Sugar
3 C. Vinegar
2 tsp. celery seed
2 tsp turmeric

Wash, peel, and dice the zucchini, onions, and peppers into a large bowl. Add salt and cover with cold water. Allow the mixture to soak for 3 hours. Rinse and drain well, adding the mixture to a large stock pot. Add the pimentos. In a saucepan combine the sugar, vinegar, 1 cup of water, celery seed, and turmeric. Bring to a boil. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. Add to the vegetable mixture and bring everything to a boil. Cook for 10 minutes.

While the mixture is cooking prepare your canning jars.  I used pint sized jars. You’ll need a large pot that will cover the tops of the jars.  You’ll want a pot that will hold 6-8 jars.  Remove the lids and rings, set those aside.  Place the empty jars into the pot and cover them with water.  Set them on the stove top to simmer.  Your want the jars nice and hot.  Once your relish mixture has cooked for 10 minutes remove it from the heat.  Then remove one jar at a time from its water bath. Spoon the relish into the jars leaving about 1/4in of space in the top of the jar.  Wipe the rim clean and place on a lid and band, then return it to the water bath.  Continue until all jars are filled (you may need to remove some water from the stock pot to keep it from getting to full).  Let your jars cook for about 10 minutes in the water bath.  Remove to a clean kitchen towel.  Once the jars are removed from the water bath you should hear a little popping sound form each jar.  This lets your know the jar is vacuum sealed, no need to refrigerate until the seal is broken.  You can test the seal by  gently pressing on the the top.  It the top can be pressed down it isn’t sealed properly.  Reprocess it in the water bath.  It it still does not seal properly try replacing the lid with a different one and reprocess.