A reader named Ringo apparently misses the garden updates, and asked whether we were still growing fruits and vegetables. Yes, and I’ve been taking pictures like mad – but still haven’t organized a major “looking at this year’s garden” post. As a stopgap, I’m going to write about relish.
Why relish? After all, we’ve frozen peas and raspberries, made rhubarb leather, and canned rhubarb compote and raspberry jam. We’ve eaten some very good tomatoes, lettuces, greens and strawberries. But the relish might be the best thing to come out of this summer, because we may have invented a new recipe.
Relish was never a huge thrill to me. It was just something to put on hot dogs and hamburgers. But last year our Chelsea Prize cucumbers, an English variety from Renee’s Garden Seeds, produced so heavily that I decided to look for a bonehead-simple relish recipe. (As a Renee’s Garden Seeds affiliate, I receive a small finder’s fee for sales made through my link.)
Found one, too. And then DF improved on it.
He improves on so many things in my life, as I’ve written before. When I described the relish recipe DF said, “You know what might be a good addition? Some jalapeño.”
We have pickled jalapeños in our fridge – a can we’d found in the dented-can bin, because that’s how we roll. So I diced up a bit of pickled pepper and added it to the mix.
The result was delicious: sweet yet pungent, mellow but with a peppery zing! that turns even the cheapest hot dogs into a decent meal.
Sometimes we nibble it by the forkful, like a salad. Which I guess it technically is, being made of cukes, onions, garlic, sugar, and mustard and celery seeds.
Our enjoyment of this humble condiment reminded me of a passage from Ray Bradbury’s “Dandelion Wine”:
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