George's Favorite Relish

George’s Favorite Relish

George's Favorite Relish

  • AuthorSherry
  • Prep30
  • Cook 40 min + 20 min
  • Total1 hour + 30 mins
  • StyleCanning
  • CuisineAmerican
Servings 6
For a while, Sherry worked for a company called Home Instead which helped look after seniors in the community. George Adam was one senior and this was his favorite relish.George had connections to Hanna; he helped build the first outdoor public swimming pool as well as the water treatment plant. One day, I discovered a book about JC Charyk on his side table in the living room. It was something his wife Lois had collected. He worked for a concrete company that invented pre-cast concrete and spent a lot of his time building bridges around Alberta.

Ingredients

  • 12largegreen tomatoes
  • 4largeonions (peeled)
  • 4largered bell pepper (seeded)
  • 2cupswhite vinegar
  • 2cupswhite sugar
  • 2tablespoonssalt*
  • 1 1/2teaspoonscelery seed
  • 1teaspoonmustard seed

Method

  1. Grind up the vegetables using a grinder or food processor. Grind until about 3-5 mm sized pieces of tomato remain. First, grind tomatoes, then grind peppers and lastly the onions, grinding into a colander or cheesecloth lined bowl.
  2. Drain about half of the liquid off from the vegetables.
  3. Place all vegetables into a large, non-reactive pot with the vinegar and boil for 30 minutes.
  4. Add sugar, salt, celery seed and mustard seed and continue cooking at a boil for another 7 minutes.
  5. Place into hot, sterilized jars using tongs, canning funnel. Use a knife to "cut into" the relish and remove air bubbles. Wipe edges of jars with a clean cloth so you'll create a good seal.
  6. Place lids on jar and add jar rings tightened to finger tightness.
  7. Place jars into canner bath and bring to a boil.
  8. Process in boiling water canner bath for 10 minutes.
  9. Remove from canner bath carefully and place on a towel on the counter with space between the jars.
  10. Leave to cool for 24 hours. Do not touch or disturb the jars. Once they start to cool, you should begin hearing the popping of the tops as they seal.
  11. Next day, label and store** in a cool dry cupboard up to two years (if it lasts that long at your house!)

Recipe Notes

*use pickling salt if you have it. Althouth the recipe doesn't specify, pickling salt would be better here as it doesn't have iodine.

**it's a good idea to remove the rings from the jars of canning items such as relish. This way, you'll know if something happened to cause your jar to be come un-sealed such as a formation of gasses in the jar which could indicate improper canning and could be toxic.

 

The recipe came originally from George's wife, Lois. Her daughter Marni passed it along to me. She's the only on ein her house that likes it so we'll be making a few extra jars this year to send over to her.

She stressed the importance of using celery SEED and mustard SEED in the recipe. These can be found easily at Bulk Barn for just the amounts you need.

 

The recipe yields 6 pints and I've used all kinds of different tomatoes to make this stuff. The 12 tomatoes I think it referred to was probably beefsteak or other large variety of tomatoes. I usually add about 6 pounds of tomatoes in the mix. And I've tossed in some red ones too. It's a pretty forgiving recipe.

Nutritional Information

Yeah, just eat less stuff from a box and you'll be finer than a frog's hair.