Relishing our harvest

This is one of the two pails of cucumbers Rick brought in yesterday evening. In this inside out season, our harvest is late but certainly bountiful. Many of these beauties are too big to make pickles, so it's time to pull out the relish recipes.

Today I decided to make a recipe that also uses our producing like crazy assortment of hot peppers. I thank God for our Cuisinart food processor that makes easier work of all the chopping that needs to be done this time of year.

FireFly's Sweet Fire Pickle Relish

8 cups finely chopped cucumbers

(since these were huge, I seeded them before chopping)

4 cups finely chopped onions

1 cup finely chopped sweet pepper

(I used sweet bananas which are somewhat hot this year)

2 cups finely chopped hot peppers

(I used a mix of portugal, hot banana, big chili and jalepeno)

1/2 cup salt

7 cups sugar

4 cups vinegar

2 tablespoons celery seed

2 tablespoons mustard seed

Combine the vegatables in a large bowl, sprinkle with salt and cover with cold water. Let sit for 2 hours. Drain well, pressing out extra liquid. This is what the mixture looked like after draining, I like the flecks of red, orange and dark green from the hot peppers.

In a large pot, mix sugar, vinegar and the celery and mustard seeds. Bring to a boil. Add the drained vegetables and simmer for 10 minutes.

Pack into hot sterilized jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Put on fresh lids and screw rings on. Process 10 minutes in boiling water. This made 9 pint jars.