We have had such a wonderful crop of tomatoes this season so far, my kitchen windowsill is packed with ripening tomatoes and there are still plenty growing in the veggie patch. Today we made our first batch of tomato relish that is about to go into the freezer. I feel a tremendous amount of gratitude to be able to walk out into our veggie garden, pick our homegrown produce and prepare it for a meal. I love that we are reaching a new level of self-sufficiency, it makes my heart smile…
The Relish:
1 basket, full of ripe tomatoes.
Soak them in boiling water, let the water cool, remove the skins and gently squeeze your tomatoes so that the seeds fall out. Squeeze them over a sieve so you can save as much juice as possible. Once I left the seeds in, and oh my goodness, they made the sauce so sour! (Live and learn:)
I slowly heated the tomatoes and added a generous amount of crushed garlic, a handfull of chopped basil leaves, salt, black pepper and some Balsamic vinegar.
I let it cook for a while and adjusted my ingredients according to taste.
Sterilised my bottling jars and added my tomato relish and popped them in the freezer.
I feel like such a farmergirl now, I just love it!
This is a great book for preserving, Putting Food By.
(A few readers have asked what camera I use, it is a Cannon Power Shot SX10IS)
looks so good and lovely photos!
I am inspired! I want your life! 🙂 Mostly I find it’s soothing to see summer going on while the snow is falling outside, thank you!
wow and yum, this is a fabulous recipe and im off to find that book! Another blogger i follow mentioned a preserve book she loves, her blog is little green shed, she also just did a post on preserving, thought you might be interested.
Yumm, sounds good!
I also love the feeling off walking into your garden and use the veggies you grow yourself.
Love, Yvonne
that does look amazing!
That is what wealth is!!
Ik feel a little jalous as we have a little city house with a tiny city garden! But than again we couldn’t store all those great jars of natural treasures.
greetz
My tomatoes are still ripening. Your relish looks yummy!
You do EVERYTHING.
Oh, for a sun warm tomato.
I love that photo of the tomatoes. Mine are still very small. but I am waiting.
Linda,
I am so jealous. We had a very hot and dry summer here in the States and our tomatoes did not like it. We had one quater the crop we usually do so no sauce or stewed tomatoes to can this year. The same thing happened with our red bell peppers. I am missing our usual store of peppers and tomatoes this winter. We are expecting another foot of snow on Wednesday!!
Looks yummy, hope you enjoy it.
Tracy
Another inspiring post my friend!!! I think I am going to have to do this as well as I can see I am going to have loads of tomatoes ripening at the same time!! I managed to do a bit of spinning yesterday and it was lovely!! I am also busy knitting a Lacy Baktus with my homespun yarn and am loving the process. We really are blessed, aren’t we!! 🙂
Lovely photos – I can almost smell the scent of ripe tomatoes…there is something so satisfying about growing and preserving..it’s stocking rich treasures for the Winter :0)
I am just about to preserve our tomatoes. Thanks for the tip regarding the seeds, I would have left them in!
This realish looks fantastic. I’ve put it aside to remind to make some when summer returns to us.
Your tomatoes and relish look amazing! I find it so neat that you have fresh tomatoes from your garden growing right now and we just got buried in over a foot of snow *grin*.
I’m drooling over here in Florida.
Don’t know if it is the sauce or the wonderful photography.
Mmmmm. Looks good! What do you use this relish for? I know. Dumb question. Do you use it in place of tomato sauce?