Grandma's Relish Recipe to the Rescue

Ahhh Summer.  Its that time of year when we think of slowing down and relaxing and mother nature is picking up speed. 

 

This is that strange time when you are amazed at the amount of food that is starting to come out of your garden and the realization that there is no way you can eat all of this stuff as it comes ripe.  You'd swear its too early to start canning, but the cucumbers start to pile up alot more than you ever imagined.

 

This is also the time when that age old phrase "where did this new zucchini come from" is heard far and wide.

 

We are making that statement almost daily right now.  I thought I had outsmarted the evil zucchini plant and chosen one that was supposed to grow 'smaller' zucchini. 

 


OK, so what that REALLY means is that you will get 5 times more zucchinis, but they WILL be smaller than the normal kind you see, equaling an equal amount of zucchini over the course of the summer.

 

We're still up to our armpits in zucchini.  

No, we can't eat them all and they just keep piling up.

Visitors are not jumping up and down with glee when we try to pedal zucchini on them, either.  They are taking the japanese cucumbers we offer them, however, which has helped out immensely.
 
 

Out of desperation, I flipped through my recipe book and didn't come up with enough recipes to put a dent in the growing pile of zucchini. 

 

Then I looked through my Grandma's recipes...and there was a recipe for zucchini relish - a recipe that is probably quite a bit older than I am - and it used 10 cups of zucchini!  SCORE!!!!
 

I had one of those "country grandmas" that could cook great tasting meals with nearly nothing in the pantry.  She was also one of the best brook trout fisherman I've ever known. 

Grandma had a large collection of recipes that she carefully guarded over the years and sometimes we would be lucky enough to learn one or two of her recipes.  No one could ever 'get a copy of that recipe' out of Grandma, and I'm afraid I've picked up that same habit.  It was only after Grandma had died that Grandpa let me borrow the recipes so I could get them written down - which was an adventure of its own. 

Just in case I end up being the same way, my Mom has been very clear that SHE gets "The Black Box" (my recipes) when I die.  Hopefully it won't come to that.

 

 

So I dove into the zucchini relish recipe.  I prepped my 10 cups of zucchini, delighted with my good luck.  I started cooking the relish and decided to water the vegetable garden while it simmered. 

 

Tomatoes happy - check

Peppers happy - check

Blueberries ready - munch munch munch

Pick more cucumbers - check

Lift a zucchini leaf…..NOOOOOO!  Not MORE ZUCCHINI!!!

 

I finished going over the bushes and we took in the two new armloads of zucchini.  The relish is ready to put up in jars and we're back at square one with the zucchini pile.  Great. 

On the bright side, this zucchini relish is AMAZING!  I think we'll make some more soon...very soon.