Blog Update!
For those of you not following me on Facebook, as of the Summer of 2019 I've moved to Central WA, to a tiny mountain town of less than 1,000 people.

I will be covering my exploits here in the Cascades, as I try to further reduce my impact on the environment. With the same attitude, just at a higher altitude!

Friday, August 1, 2014

Spicy Sweet Relish for the weekend

We are supposed to be on vacation in Southern California right now. But, unfortunately, my husband's cancer complications have made the last month a very painful one for him. And, as luck would have it, he started radiation therapy two days before we were scheduled to fly out. Aside from him being in a lot of pain and severely fatigued and everyone being stressed out I, honestly, don't mind. I get to hang out in my garden during peak production time. Is that weird?

Marketmore cucumbers
Anyway, our slicing cucumbers are finally coming in and I've got a huge bag of pickling cucumbers staring at me in the fridge. So, since we really can't do much of anything this weekend, I think I'm going to make my favorite Spicy Sweet Relish. Plus, there's nothing better than standing over a steamy canner when it's hot out.

This year, I only planted a couple of cucumber plants (about 3 each, slicers and pickling cukes). Last year I went nuts and planted way more than that and we are still up to our eyeballs in pickles. I didn't want a repeat of that. I think I may have skimped a little too much on my plants this year because of the overproduction from last year. Maybe one of these days I'll get it figured out.

In addition to the pickling cucumbers, I'm also trying to avoid making eye contact with the pile of massively overripe bananas on the counter. I already have more frozen bananas than humanly necessary and I've been charged with making banana muffins. But, I really dread turning on the oven when it's over 80 degrees in the house.

Are you preserving anything this weekend? (And, yeah, I'm going to pretend that it hasn't been 8 months since I last blogged something).


6 comments:

The 4 Bushel Farmgal said...

I freeze bananas with the best intentions and then forget about them. But I did make zucchini bread this week, and hopefully will get some zucchini pickles canned this week.
Best wishes for your husband's treatments.
So glad to see your post! (I don't fb or twitter.)

Crunchy Chicken said...

"I don't fb or twitter."

That's probably smart. I don't twitter either, but FB can be an enormous time sink.

Our summer sitter has been bringing over zucchini muffins for the kids and (I hope) will be dropping off some surplus zucchini. I hadn't thought of making pickles with them, so thanks for the idea!

Jennie said...

Zucchini relish is delish as well.
Welcome back to blog land. It's nice to hear from you again.

Crunchy Chicken said...

Thanks! It's nice to be back.

I didn't plant zucchini this year, but am always looking for donations :)

Green Bean said...

Thank you for the reminder to make relish! I don't do pickles. Mine always turn out soggy and as I haven't figured out a work around, we just do a ton of cucumber salads but relish .... I haven't made that in years. Will have to give it a try this weekend.

Freezing tomato sauce today and trying to figure out what to do with the sour blackberries and peaches lounging around my counter.

Crunchy Chicken said...

GB - Yeah, I don't really eat pickles, so I'm not making any this year. My pickle eating family hasn't kept up!

Ooh! I'm making an Amaretto Blackberry Cobbler for our block party tomorrow night. If it turns out good, I'll post the recipe. I'm desperately trying to use up mine as well.