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Every "gardener" finds themselves with too much fruit or vegetables and if they are prudent will attempt to "fix" a dish or relish to used the produce. I had a bag of sweet onions about to go bad (sweet onions don't last as long as yellow or white) also we had plenty of tomatoes, wonderful sweet tomatoes given to me by a friend. I remembered cooking a delightful sweet and hot relish years ago which went so very well with peas and beans or on hot dogs so ... First off I fixed BigDaddy fresh Salsa which he will eat on everything from tacos to omelets, but it won't last long without going bad in the refrigerator so the remainder of the produce had to be cook using vinegar to preserve it. I don't do "canning" if I can keep from it therefore my aim was for a couple of pint jars of relish which could be kept in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks. BUT it had to be good enough so that we would actually use in that length of time. Here is what I did ...
Judy's Hot & Sweet Tomato Relish
Tomatoes - ten or so BIG ones
Jalapeno pepper - one medium size, depending upon you fancy for the hot stuff
Sweet Onions - 4 medium
Brown Sugar - about 2 cups, kept adding a tad, to offset the heat of the Jalapeno pepper, so I can't say exactly
White Vinegar - about a cup or two, again I went by taste
Sea Salt, black pepper and cumin to taste
The tomatoes were too juicy so cooking down was taking a long time. My back was hurting therefore I started thinking of ways to thicken it without a negative impact on the taste ... CERTO, used in making jelly, jam and such. I had some on hand so I added an envelope, then boiled it for 3 minutes. The texture was exactly what I wanted, thickened up the "juice" nicely. I hope it doesn't turn into Relish Jelly over night. lol lol
My motto in reference to cooking is: get creative, if I mess it up the rescue dogs or "strays that came to stay" will eat it, but that doesn't apply to tomato relish. I can just imagine what their attitude toward tomato relish would be. lol lol lol
sounds good i will try it , he had asked me can't make salsa or something with all tomatoes nevr made it either.. i did make some delious banana muffins though..
I've had so many tomatoes that I've been experimenting ... I made a tomato dipping sauce (use with chicken nuggets or just about anything) by putting the tomatoes through a food processor, put them in a colander in a big bowl to drain the juice. Put the juice in a heavy pan, added both brown sugar and white sugar need lots cause it's kinda like making a syrup. Cooked until it thickened then added the tomatoes, cinnamon and pumpkin spice. I know you can't eat it but maybe he would like it.
