Who knew I would be the person making jars of pickled stuff in my kitchen? Not me, that's for sure. But as time goes on, I feel more inclined to increase my food storage and make things in my home for our family. I love baking and sharing what I have made - and now that my kids are obsessed with tomato relish (seriously - a standard breakfast here is toast spread with butter, tomato relish and sliced cheese. I really can't blame them either - it's delicious!) I felt like I needed to make my own. Mum has been making it for years and when her neighbour (same one that gave me the incredible vintage dresses) gave her some of her own batch recently, she decided to change to her recipe as it's amaaaaazing. So today we made tomato relish. Two triple batches in fact.
TOMATO RELISH
1360g ripe tomatoes
1 tablespoon mustard
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
1 small tablespoon curry powder
450g white onions
1 1/2 tablespoons plain flour
450g white sugar
1 cup vinegar
salt to taste
Method:
Cut tomatoes and onions into small pieces.
Put contents into dish, add salt to taste, mix then cover and leave overnight.
Drain in morning, add one cup of vinegar, boil for five minutes, then mix in cayenne pepper and sugar.
Mix flour, curry and mustard with a little vinegar, then add to the tomato mixture, boiling for one hour. Stir regularly to avoid mixture sticking to the base of the pot.
Bottle while hot.
This is definitely a story for generations to come. I had to cut up eight and a quarter kilograms of tomatoes, then almost three kilograms of onions last night. Poor Madeline decided to stay up and wouldn't go to bed because they didn't have school today and kept crying because the onions were so strong. Literally sitting on the couch crying from the fumes - but wouldn't go to bed. It was hilarious. She'd rather have her eyes on fire than go to bed.
So today we made up our witches brew as dad called it, then bottled it (hot tip, put the jars in the sink in hot water first so they warm up and don't crack cause the mixture will be boiling.) ready to be eaten. Yum.
We did really well, there was only one jar that didn't pop seal at the top
and we got 24 jars from our mix! So happy. I am sure that will take us a while to get through.
