Red Pepper Relish

Come see what these lovely beauties became!

My Mum gave (cough, OK I might have stole it when I left home) a fantastic old cookbook called "The Canadian Catholic Ladies Treasured Family Recipes". Inside is a recipe for Pepper Relish that my Mum has amened the ingredients and renamed "Aunt Rita's Red Pepper". Now if you know my mother, she NEVER follows a recipe, she's always gotta tweak it!

Here's our friendly group of ingredients. My friend Quilting Newbie came over last Sunday to supervise, gab and join me for dinner.

Vegetables all nicely washed, pre-cut and ready to go through the food processor.

Onions and Peppers fresh out of the processor. Stinky!

Onions and Peppers after their "presoak" in boiling water and squeezed dry.

All the ingredients gently boiling away. MMM-HMM, how can the smell of home made relish be so good? I think it must be something that comes with age and appreciation. When I was a kid my Mum would make "chili-sauce". Ugh, back then I used to whine and complain that it stunk! (Sorry Mum!! PS if you feel like making some, I'm more than willing to help this time)

Look at that! A thing of beauty!

This Red Pepper Relish is great with cheese and crackers and we really love it beside roasted meats. It's great added to ground meat for burgers and cocktail meatballs. From beginning to end I would say took about 2 hours and was really fun to make.

Aunt Rita's Red Pepper Relish

8 large red peppers

5 medium onions

1 1/2 cups white vinegar

1 1/2 cups white sugar

1 Tbs. salt

1 tsp. celery seed

Wash and prepare onions and peppers to run through food processor with coarse grating blade. Place chopped peppers and onions in pot and cover with boiling water from kettle and let sit for 5 minutes; then drain very well.

Place drained onions, peppers and remaining ingredients in pot. Bring to a gentle boil for 15 minutes. Pack in hot sterilized jars. Makes 3 pints.