Red Pepper Relish Roast

A long long while ago, SnoWhite posted this recipe on her blog. As I am well stocked with red pepper relish, I thought I'd give it a try. It had been on my to make list for quite some time, so the other day when I needed a quick, crock pot meal, it was a great time to try it. I changed it up a bit, according to what I had.

Red Pepper Relish Roast
3-4 lb roast (I used a venison roast - but it would be best with pork, I think)
Salt
Pepper
1 red onion, chopped
1/2 pint red pepper relish
1/4 pint Thai sauce (or any kind of hot sauce - I used half a jar of a Thai sauce I tried making in the fall. I didn't post the recipe because I wasn't happy with the result, but it worked fine in this recipe)

Place roast in crock pot. Cover with onions. Season with salt and pepper.

Mix red pepper relish and thai sauce together in a small bowl.


Pour over roast.

Cover and cook on low for 7-8 hours. Shred meat and serve.

Serve with rice or potatoes and pour the remaining sauce over (be careful - it will be a bit spicy because of the Thai sauce!)

Makes 4 servings.

Stewed Tomatoes

Logi and I made stewed tomatoes at the very end of our canning day on Saturday and I completely forgot to take any pictures.

Growing up, I remember I used to always request stewed tomatoes and toast for lunch when I visited Grandma and Grandpa up north. Since I started canning, I decided I really wanted to have some again so I asked my aunties and Mom how grandma did it, and I gave it a shot. I haven't tried them yet to know if they are the same as Grandma's, but we'll see. If they don't taste as good as Grandma's, then I will just use them in cooking instead of just eating them by the bowl.

To make stewed tomatoes, begin by cutting an X in the bottom of each tomato. Immerse them in boiling water for 30 seconds to a minute and then dunk them in ice cold water. The skins will magically fall off.

Chop tomatoes into large chunks. I had a mix of Roma's and beefsteaks. The Roma's I either halved or quartered, depending on the size and the beefsteaks I cut in quarters or sixths. You want them to be chunky.

Place tomatoes on the stove and bring to a simmer. Cook them until they are "tender and cooked down". This is the instruction I got from my aunt. I'm not sure how long to say to cook them for, but you'll know when they are tender and cooked down :D.

Meanwhile, heat jars and lids to sterilize.

When tomatoes are nice and cooked down, put them in jars, adding 2 T lemon juice and 1/2 tsp of salt per quart jar or 1 T lemon juice and 1/4 tsp salt in a pint jar.

8 quarts of tomatoes will yield approximately 6 quarts of jars.

Diced Tomatoes

This post isn't really a recipe. It's just a step-by-step post about how to can diced tomatoes. If you are interested in canning your tomatoes, I hope it is helpful. More than anything, I'm writing this post so I can clearly remember what I did for next year.

1. Peel and chop tomatoes and place them in a large pot. Chop tomatoes much larger than you would expect diced tomatoes to be as they will cook down significantly.

2. Place pot over medium-high heat and bring to an almost boil. Once they are bubbly and starting to get foamy on top, simmer for 5 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, heat jars and lids to sterilize.

4. Fill hot jars with tomatoes, leaving more head space than usual (see photo below) in order to leave room for the lemon juice and salt.

5. For quarts - add 2 T lemon juice and 1/2 tsp salt. For pints - add 1 T lemon juice and 1/4 tsp salt. Be sure to leave 1/2 inch headspace.

6. Wipe rim with a damp, clean cloth.

7. Seal and place in water canner. Process pints in a boiling-water canner for 35 minutes and quarts for 45 minutes. Remove from canner, place on a towel and let cool. Be patient for them to seal, as I have found with both batches that they take longer to seal than other things I've made.

I'm not exactly sure of the yield of this - on Saturday Logi and I made 21 quarts and I believe we started with something like 15-18 quarts of tomatoes.

Plum Butter

We got a bunch of plums from one of the trees in the back orchard and I remembered seeing Gayle's recipe for Plum Butter a few days ago so I decided to give it a try.

Plum Butter - from The Grocery Cart Challenge
7 L plums
4-5 cups sugar, to taste

1. Wash plums and chop the pits out. Throw them in a big pot, skin and all.

2. Boil until skins dissolved and fruit becomes syrupy with just a few clumps in it. I used my masher to hurry the process along a bit. I would say it took about 45 minutes.

3. When fruit has reached a desired consistency, add sugar, stirring constantly. Taste it to get the desired sweetness. I found that between 4 and 5 cups left the mixture tasting somewhat tart but still delicious. Boil until mixture begins to thicken. I tested the thickness by placing a dessert bowl in the freezer and placing some of the plum butter on it. As it cooled, it thickened to a texture that I thought would be good for plum butter.

Makes 8 1/2 pints.

My mom and I think that this will be delicious on toast and also as a dipping sauce for shrimp, chicken or appetizers (hello, Plum Sauce!)

This recipe is being shared at Tempt My Tummy Tuesday and Tasty Tuesday.

Pickled Beets

Pickled Beets
Beets (however many you choose)
Brine
1 1/2 cup vinegar
1/2 cup water
3/4 cup sugar
1 T salt

1. Remove tops from beets and wash well. Place beets in roast pan(s) and add about 2 inches of water. We left the smaller ones whole but chopped large ones in half or quarters, so that most pieces would be similar sizes. Roast at 375 for 1.5-2 hours, until beets are soft.

2. Allow beets to cool slightly and peel. Chop into halves or quarters.

3. Place beets in sterilized jars. Add boiling hot brine to the jars, leaving 1/2 inch head space.

4. Use a knife to remove any air bubbles that may be in the jars. Use a clean, damp cloth to wipe the rim if any brine or beet juice got on it.

5. Cover with a hot, sterilized snap lid and ring. Seal tightly. Let jars cool, allowing them to seal.

Note: while I use a water bath for most of the canning, I didn't for the beets. Just be sure that the beets, brine, jars and lids are all smokin' hot when you fill them.

*For a 7 L basket of beets, we found we needed 4-5 batches of brine and it made 14 pints.

Salsa

This recipe is for two batches of salsa. It can easily be cut in half.

Salsa - from Linda
12 quarts Roma tomatoes
4 cups onions
2 each green, red and yellow pepper
12 jalapeno peppers (or 6 jalapeno and 6 red finger - I just couldn't find any red finger this time)
1 1/2 cup vinegar
3 cans tomato paste
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp cumin
2 T cilantro
1/2 cup sugar
6 tsp salt
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 T lemon juice

1. Peel and chop tomatoes. To make peeling easy, mark each tomato with an X on the butt (Thanks for the tip, Taryn), dip into a pot of boiling water for 30-60 seconds and then transfer to a bowl with ice cold water. The skins will just fall off. As you'll see below, I had a little station set up where I had the pot of boiling water on the stove (you can just use a kettle and boil some if you're only doing a few tomatoes), a bowl of icy water beside the stove, a cutting board and small bowl for the skins and the pot to transfer chopped tomatoes into.

2. Place tomatoes in a large stock, begin to boil, stirring often. Drain off excess liquid if necessary. By using Roma tomatoes, which are a paste tomato, you will have less liquid to drain off. Using other varieties, such as beef steaks or better boys, will make your base much runnier as they are watery tomatoes.

3. While tomatoes are boiling chop remaining ingredients. Remember to wear gloves while you chop your hot peppers to avoid having the jalapeno flavour on your hands for days. If you like a little more spice, leave the seeds in some (or all) of the hot peppers. I left the seeds in 4 of the 12. I don't like it too spicy, but I like a little bit of a kick.

4. When tomatoes are boiled down (about half hour or so) and drained to your liking, add remaining ingredients, stirring after each addition. 5. Boil for approximately an hour and a half, stirring often, until thickened to your liking.

6. Process into jars. Click here for a detailed description of the canning process I use.

Makes 13-14 pints.

Barbeque Onions

While we were doing our canning, the fabulous dude had to leave for a few hours to help some friends with some things around their homes. At this point, we were finished the red pepper relish and zucchini marmalade but I didn't really want to start the salsa until he was back because it is kind of "his thing". We had talked to his mom about these onions she had made and were planning on making them at a later time but since I had a few hours and I was already on a roll I decided to just go for it. They are so tasty. They will be delicious as a topping for steak, as a pizza sauce or even baked over chicken. I am very excited for them.

BBQ Onions - adapted from MIL
16 cups sweet onions
4 cups spaghetti sauce
1 cup ketchup
2 cups brown sugar
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup vinegar
1 cup canola oil
A few drops liquid smoke (if you've got it - it will give it a nice flavour)

1. Peel onions and slice into rings. Place in large stock pot.

2. Add remaining ingredients.

3. Stir together. Cook over medium-high heat for approximately 30 minutes, or until onions are soft, stirring often.

4. Process into jars. Click here for a detailed description of the canning process I use.

Makes 7 pints.