The Peach Post!

Today it's raining and we're neeeevvveerrr going to be done with harvest, it seems, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to post about my peachy endeavors of late. :)  WARNING: THIS POST IS PEACH-PACKED, AND IS VERY LENGTHY. IT MAY INDUCE SUDDEN CRAVINGS FOR ALL THINGS PEACH! Read with caution!

Who loves peaches out there!?

It is totally peach season right now and I am loving it! And to think I went most of my life without knowing I liked peaches at all?! Now, it's probably my favorite summer fruit. There's really almost nothing better than a fresh peach, perfectly ripe. Tastes like summer and sunshine. Can't beat it.

This love of peaches inspired me to purchase a case of the sunny golden fruit in my last Bountiful Baskets order. I've been working my way through eating, cooking with, and preserving them ever since! Read all about how I've been putting my peaches to use! Oh, and just try not to start humming that song by the Presidents of the United States of America as you read this!

What?! You don't know that song? You haven't seen the video? Lucky you...

Pretty delightful, right?

I was not attacked by ninjas at any point in my peachy adventures, but they're not gone yet, so there's still time! I'll have to re-watch the video to pick up some of the Presidents' defense techniques.

Anyway... moving on.

Peach Pie 
The very first thing I did the day I brought the peaches home was make a peach pie. Lattice-top peach pie has become a once-a-year tradition for me during peach season. Last year, I had Stennie here to help and give me plenty of much-needed pie making tips. We referred to a giant cookbook I have called The New Best Recipe, from the editors of Cooks Illustrated, for that pie and many other baking endeavors. This cookbook is always right and is loaded with tips and information. We came to lovingly call it The Cooking Bible. This year, I wanted to try something different. I found a different crust recipe to use and then researched online for a filling recipe that I thought would do great. Here's how it turned out:

Lattice top peach pie.

This was the first use of the peaches from my case and to be honest, they were underripe at this point. This was a blessing in that it made them very easy to peel with a standard vegetable peeler, but not as good for cooking uses because they weren't as sweet yet. The filling recipe did not use as much sugar as other recipes, so the filling in this pie was not as sweet as one may have liked. It also didn't thicken at all. The crust was great, though. I was really happy with how the crust turned out and I'd definitely use that recipe again. All in all, it was a peach pie. I mean, come on, it would have to be pretty bad to not be excellent, right? Next time, I may refer back to The Cooking Bible for the filling recipe, though. ;)

Fiery Peach Salsa
While my peaches were still underripe, I thought it would be a good time to put them through the slice, dice, and cooking process of canning them into a salsa. I have made and canned peach salsa before, but I was ready to try a new recipe. I found one in one of my many canning books, this time from Southern Living's book Little Jars, Big Flavors. I knew for peaches, trusting a southern cookbook would be a great start! I used the recipe called "Fiery Peach Salsa," only I had to adapt it just a tad because I didn't have any habaneros on hand. I just used more jalapenos. This recipe was really easy and didn't take a ton of ingredients- pretty much just peaches, peppers, onion, and cider vinegar plus a few other things. I did all my dicing before leaving for work in the morning, then when I got home, I was ready to can. Super simple.

Cooking down the peach salsa a bit before packing it into jars.

 I had a bit left over that didn't fit in a jar, so I enjoyed it with some chips as an afternoon snack. Like many canned salsa recipes, you can taste the cider vinegar and the acidity, but it wasn't bad. It was actually not spicy at all. As a sidenote, I think jalapenos are becoming less spicy all the time. I used four in this recipe and I'd classify it even less spicy than "mild." This would be a really great marinade for fish, chicken, or pork!

Peachy pepper salsa- finished product in half-pint jars!

Peach Bellini Dessert Sauce
Next up, another canning recipe. Again, this one was SUPER easy. Just peel and dice up a whole bunch of peaches and add some lemon zest, lemon juice, and... CHAMPAGNE! Then, just cook it down for a while, and process in hot water bath. I didn't know if I'd even get that far because I kept having visions of dunking my head into the simmering peach reduction--the smell was soooooo good! Jeff and I opened a jar that very night and had some on our ice cream. Delicious! It also made an appearance the next morning with my yogurt for breakfast, and at lunch time on buscuits and... This stuff is the best! Summer in a jar.

Top: Simmering the peaches.
Bottom: After they've cooked down, just prior to filling jars.

Peach Bellini Dessert Sauce- finished product. YUM!

Whiskey-Peach Upside Down Skillet Cake
It was time for another baked peach treat! After a Pinterest search for "peach cake," I found several recipes I ended up combining to make what I'm calling Whiskey-Peach Upside Down Skillet Cake. This may have been one of the most delicious dessert items I've ever made. It turned out absolutely perfect. I think I could have eaten the entire thing on night one. I made this in my cast iron skillet and started by making an easy caramel sauce with butter and brown sugar. Then I arranged my peeled and sliced peaches in the pan and splashed some whiskey over the whole thing before pouring the cake batter over top and baking. It inverted out onto a plate nicely:

Whiskey-Peach Upside Down Skillet Cake

Again, phenomenal with ice cream. Best eaten warm right out of the oven. With the heavy caramel sauce, I think this one would be really good as a fall or holiday treat, if one could find ripe peaches... Just tasted very decadent. So good.

Peach-Raspberry Pie Filling
This one is a long story. I'm going to spare you the details and just say that this was a recipe I had intended on canning but the magazine I was following had a mis-print, so I had purchased the wrong ingredient. Turns out there's a big difference between regular clearjel and instant clearjel. They're NOT interchangeable, and you should NOT can with instant clearjel, which is what I now have four cans of. *humph* In the end, I made the filling as the recipe suggested, but packed it into freezer bags instead.

The pie filling before adding in the fruit. 

 The Instant Clearjel lives up to its name as it jels INSTANTLY and is VERY thick. It looked and felt like stirring petroleum jelly...

After adding fruit into the filling.

 It was impossible not to crush the raspberries when trying to get an even stir of the filling. I also don't think a person would need to pre-cook the peaches if intending to freeze or use this filling recipe right away. I think you'd cook the sugar and water just to melt it, then add in the instant clearjel, then stir in raw fruit. Anyway...They look pretty, right?

Four freezer bags full of extra thick Peach-Raspberry pie filling. 

 They froze for about a week before I made my first pie with one of these pre-made filling bags. This past weekend, with Katie, Josh, and Brandon here was the perfect time to thaw out a bag of the filling and try it in a pie. Everyone really liked it, and I did too, but I could pick up on the extra flavor of the Instant Clearjel. I think if I follow this filling recipe again intending for immediate use or for freezing, I'll use less of the Instant Clearjel. No one else seemed to notice, however. It's another case of the baker being the harshest critic. ;) Overall, I thought it was really tasty and so handy to have a ready-made filling all set to go in the freezer!

Does anybody know what time it is? har har har...

 Turns out I'm not a graceful pie slicer, so this doesn't look photo-perfect, but that's OK because it tastes great!

Just look at that delicious pie... 

 As a sidenote, anyone know any great uses for instant clearjel?


"Summer Mess" Fresh Peach and Veggie Salsa and Spicy Beef Tacos
After so many sweet uses for peaches, I was craving something a bit more savory. On a whim, I plugged "peaches and beef" into my Pinterest. There wasn't much. People seem to think I meant to type "peaches and pork," as there were TONS of recipes for peaches and pork. But no, I have a freezer full of beef and I'd like to use it, thankyouverymuch! So, when I saw "Spicy Beef Tacos with Summer Mess" I thought it might be worth a try! I mean, it's fresh salsa with peaches, tomatoes, corn, jalapenos, onion, cilantro and lime juice--all things that I love--slopped over grilled flank steak, which I also love! I didn't follow the recipe for the beef exactly, opting to use a simple spice rub I had on hand rather than the barbecue sauce recipe they used. It turned out great! I skipped the taco shell and just sliced my steak up and piled the salsa on top. It was all great the next day too as sort of a salad bowl with spinach and a side of cottage cheese. This was so simple and so good! Also, a perfectly balanced recipe that features beef in a healthy diet. Excellent for a beef-fueled run! :)

Grilled steak with peach "summer mess" salsa and spinach. Delicious!

What are your favorite peach recipes? Do peaches give you a warm and fuzzy feeling?

Image source: www.fruitycuties.com

Thanks for hanging on through the entire peachy post of power! Have a peachy day!

Salad In a Jar

If you haven't noticed, mason jars are really trendy right now. Just do a Google or Pinterest search and see what you come up with. They are being used for everything from light fixtures to soap dispensers and everything in between, including good old canning and food storage. Here on the farm, we do a fair amount of canning to preserve our garden bounty and Carol also does canned beef every year. We have no shortage of jars around and we're not afraid to use them!

So when this week's Shape Up Montana Weekly Challenge was to make ahead some salads in mason jars, we were completely on board and ready to go! We don't have any garden produce yet, but since we do get a Bountiful Basket every other week, we were able to find some salad recipes that utilized ingredients we had on hand, including lots of fresh produce and grains and some healthy, lean proteins. Yesterday, Jeff, Tom, Carol and I got together and combined our resources and ingredients to put together a whole bunch of mason jar salads to eat throughout the week.

Beautiful jars of Chopped Black Bean and Corn Mason Jar Salad.

The inspiration and recipes for our salads came from an article I found on Buzzfeed. The article featured eighteen recipes, each a different combination of ingredients for mason jar salads. Jeff looked through all of them and found two that worked well with ingredients we already had. When we all got together, Jeff was the task master, too, and coordinated all of the salad creating efforts. The recipes we chose were similar, but contained different ingredients. We made Burrito Bowl Salads, and  Chopped Black Bean and Corn Mason Jar Salad.  Both had southwestern inspiration and flavors, and both had a "dressing" of greek yogurt and salsa.

Jeff places the first ingredients in the jars. I'm showing off his skills with Vanna hands. 

 What took the most time in preparing these salads was chopping veggies and preparing the ingredients. We were more or less starting from scratch, so all the veggies had to be cleaned and diced, chicken and sweet potatoes had to be seasoned and cooked, corn had to be thawed, black beans rinsed and drained, lettuce was torn, rinsed and spun dry. It was a good thing we had all hands on deck because it would have been a lot of work for one person.

While waiting on a few ingredients to be prepped, Jeff and Tom talked farming as Tom read the latest copy of Progressive Farmer.  

 The first salad we started on was the black bean and corn salad. It contained Greek yogurt, salsa, black beans, corn, bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, red onion, cubed pepper jack cheese, and lettuce. Even though this salad is meatless, the beans, corn, cheese and yogurt will pack a powerful protein punch.

Jeff measures out black beans for each jar.

 We tackled the Burrito Bowl jars next. Ingredients for this one include Greek yogurt, bell peppers, cubed sweet potatoes, cilantro-lime quinoa, diced cooked chicken, shredded cheddar cheese, and lettuce. Again, this salad will be a protein powerhouse as quinoa is high in protein and it also contains chicken, cheese, and Greek yogurt.

Tom and Carol spoon some Greek yogurt into the bottom of the Burrito Bowl jars.

 I think the salad in a jar idea is really great because it allows you to prep some meals ahead of time that can be used later in the week. Jeff and Tom will be able to take them in their lunches while they're working on seeding barley, Carol can eat one for a quick lunch in the house or wherever she is, and I plan to bring a jar to my track meet tomorrow evening. It's a great on-the-go meal for busy people.

Putting lettuce in each jar.

If a person didn't want to spend a bunch of time cutting and chopping, you could use leftover ingredients from meals earlier in the week, or buy pre-cut produce and pre-cooked chicken, etc. I think a person could be really resourceful in using up leftovers from the fridge and making up your own salads whenever odd bits of leftover ingredients are around. 

Screwing lids on jars.

One thing that is important to remember in creating a mason jar salad is to put the wetter ingredients and salad dressings in FIRST. Then progress to drier ingredients as you fill the jar, saving lettuce for last. This way things like lettuce and cheese don't get soggy from sitting in the dressing. Plus, the colorful layers really look great in a clear jar!

Finished! Aren't those layers beautiful?

 When you're ready to eat, just dump your jar out onto a big plate or bowl and chow down. Easy, right?

If you're looking for a fun meal to make as a family that's healthy and delicious, mason jar salads could be just the ticket! Even young kids can get involved in helping and layering ingredients, and you can teach them about nutrition along the way. We had a great time making these together over the weekend and I can't wait to dig in! The four of us will definitely get our ten bonus points for Shape Up Montana, and these will work well for the Protein Challenge I'm participating in, too.

Have you ever made mason jar salads? What are some great, healthy meal ideas you use in your busy house?

The Food Post

I know I have been writing a lot about food and baking lately on the blog, so I wanted to take a post here to show some photos and share a little bit about what I have been up to. Some projects have been solo endeavors and others with either Stephanie or Carol. There is something very satisfying about making a home-cooked meal from scratch, especially when using ingredients one has grown oneself. 

Again, as a disclaimer: I'm no food photographer! I'll try to get better if I keep posting food images, but... no promises! 

One of the first things Stennie and I did when she got here was mix up a batch of pie crusts. We made four crusts and formed them into discs. Three went into the freezer and one was made into a crust for this delicious pie:

Wishing I had taken a photo of a slice of pie so you could see the key lime part... 

This pie is a key-lime pie topped with fresh raspberries. The limes came from my Bountiful Basket and the berries were from Carol's raspberry thicket. Stennie and I did the crust together, but I whipped up the custardy lime filling on my own. I had never made anything custard-like before, and was really pleased with how it turned out.

It was a big hit at dinner that night, too. I carried it over to Tom and Carol's in this wonderful food carrier:

Made by Nancy |Olson

This was something I received at my bridal shower up here on the Hi-Line about three and a half years ago. It was made by a local woman who has since passed away. It's a perfect carrier for harvest-time meals, potlucks, or any time one is taking food to and fro.

Another plentiful garden vegetable right now is green beans. A few days after Carol returned from her vacation, we picked and canned these green beans as bean pickles, or dilly beans as some people call them. The contents are simple: green beans, dill heads, garlic, red pepper flakes, sugar, salt, cider vinegar. Canned using the hot water bath method, they are pretty simple and very delicious! I like bean pickles on grilled brats especially well in the summer, but they're also delightful eaten plain. 

The beans, garlic, pepper flakes, and dill have been packed into jars and are awaiting the hot cider vinegar solution, then to be processed. 

Carrots are also plentiful in the garden this year. I am really loving these rainbow carrots we planted. I think the colors are very beautiful. They look like a sunset in carrot form, some of them. We have been noticing that they vary in strength of carroty flavor depending on the color. The white ones are very mild, yellow is slightly stronger, orange tastes like a normal carrot, and the red ones are even more carroty. They are all delicous!

With the most recent Bountiful Basket, I also ordered a case of peaches. I have had a few questions from people as to the quality of the peaches, so I thought I'd answer those here. The peaches came from Washington. They were very sweet and lovely flavored. They weren't too big or too small in size. There was not a single unusable peach in the box. The whole thing was great in every aspect. 

Including, baked into peach pie! 

This was another tag-team effort between me and Stennie. We pulled two pie crust discs out of the freezer ahead of time and rolled one into the bottom crust and the other into a top-crust, destined to be a lattice crust. We had a lot of fun cutting the strips for the lattice top and weaving them together. It can be a bit tedious to accomplish, with several trips back and forth between countertop and freezer to keep the butter in the crust cool, but.... 

In the end, the pie turned out so beautiful and delicious, that it was well worth the effort! 

We shared the peach pie at a neighborhood dinner with some dear friends and family. It was a nice treat, especially with a little ice cream! 

My recipe made 9 pint jars of peaches in a light simple syrup.
I used those two books as references. 

With the remaining peaches from my case, I decided to tackle another canning project. I had never canned fruit straight-up before, so this was a fun process. I was delighted at how simple it was, too, especially contrasted with making marinara sauce, which is highly involved and usually takes me about two days to get through all the steps. The peaches only took about two hours, including blanching and peeling, packing into jars, making simple syrup and filling the jars, and processing. Stennie's help is also another big reason why the canning process went quickly and smoothly. I can't wait to open a jar on a cool fall or winter day for a little bit of canned sunshine and love from summer!

We've had many other delicious meals and baked goods, from homemade pizza to canned meat dinner. Stay tuned to the blog for updates on all our culinary adventures! 

Calf Sale!

Arriving at work today, Tuesday, which is in fact my Monday, having asked a number of coworkers how they spent their weekend, I found I was feeling a bit confused.  One hundred percent of survey respondents stated their weekends were filled with lazy, dog-days-of-summer activities.  One hundred percent of those I asked reported going to the lake.  Other activities included “going to the fair,” “visiting family/friends,” and the delightfully general, “relaxing.”  Why was I feeling confused?  My thought was, “Why did all of these people have so much extra time for “relaxing?”  What happened to my weekend?

 

Yes, it’s true I have a four-day weekend.  By that I mean I work at a wage-paying job in town three days a week.  By no means are the remaining four days are spent idle.  My weekend typically involves gardening either at my house or in the big gardens at Tom and Carol’s, calf-chores, shuttling vehicles with Jeff, helping with cows, housework such as laundry, cleaning, cooking, putting up food from the garden… any or all of the above. 

 

To be clear, I am not trying to be one of those martyrs to being busy.  You know the type… “I’m so busy! You can’t possibly understand how busy I am all the time!  I don’t have time for anyone or anything but all my important, busy tasks! No one is as busy as I am!...” listing all their many, varied, “important” activities.  That’s not my point. 

 

What is my point? Summer is busy!  We’re all busy. Well, all of us except everyone I unofficially surveyed at work in Chester today.  My guess is that each of them were busier than they let on, but who wants to say, “Why, yes my weekend was filled with banal but time-occupying tasks around the house and farm…”  (The Busy Martyrs, that’s who!)   Truthfully, I’d rather be busy than not.  Besides, after being away from home so much in the first half of the summer, at this point it still feels satisfying to dig in to home and farm tasks and feel the sense of accomplishment that comes with them.

 

This weekend was a big weekend for the ranch side of our operation.  Friday and Saturday were spent moving each of the four bunches of our herd which had heretofore been split into four groups in four different pastures, with the bulls in each respective group.  Each group was brought back to the yard, the bulls separated out, and fly-treatment administered.  Newsflash: Cows get flies. Cows get flies realllllly bad. Bulls get them even worse than cows!  Do you like getting fly bites? Me neither.  I can’t imagine constantly having so many flies swarming around me.  I tend to reach for the bug spray pretty quickly.  Animals can’t apply it to themselves, so that’s where we come in.  They really seem to love the fly spray, which is mixed in with cool water.  On a hot summer day, it probably feels pretty good to get a cool shower and be rid of your bugs all at once! 

 

Yesterday was also important as it was the day our calves sold.  I’m not positive, but I think the selling price was another record high, and the calves look like they will weigh out pretty good at shipping time, so that’s good, too.  The past few years we have sold our calves in a video-auction format.  So, a local representative from the auction company visits the farm and takes a video of our cows and calves.  The video is posted on their website for viewing before the sale.  You can check out the video of our calves here: http://www.northernlivestockvideo.com/catalog.php?lot=19673&SaleID=816  The sale itself is televised.  Prospective buyers place their bids online or over the phone. Kinda crazy, and I’m sure I’m not explaining it very well, but it works. Even though the calves sold yesterday, we will continue to graze them until the shipping date in late October.  Tonight for dinner we are eating beef (spaghetti with homemade meatballs!) to celebrate our calves selling so well!

 

And speaking of food, another of my major accomplishments over the weekend was food prep.  Harvest is nearly upon us, so I have been trying to prepare planned-overs to have on hand for harvest meals.  I have also done some putting-up of produce from the garden and from our Bountiful Basket.  Right now, we have snow peas and regular peas in full force and green beans starting to come on.  Shelling peas is a nice activity for watching baseball games.  Snow peas have been eaten plain, in salads, and frozen for later.  Green beans will most definitely be processed into delicious pickled beans—one of my favorites!  I also tried a few new recipes this weekend for home-canned goods:  Strawberry Dessert Sauce, and Blueberry-Maple-Pecan Conserve.  Both of which were absolutely delicious when I scraped a spoon in the pot to clean out the left-overs, and both super easy to make. 

 

All of the activity over the weekend carried the decreasingly-subtle hubbub of harvest preparation.  It’s likely we will be cutting peas within a week to ten days, and there’s lots to do in the meantime before we start.  That electric excitement is starting to gather in the air, however. 

 

The other busy creatures this time of year are the rattlesnakes… More on this in my next post, due later this week!

Super Bowl Butter

What did you do for the Super Bowl this year?

In the past, I have been about as anti-super bowl as it could get. I was actually not a fan of football at all until I met my husband, and always hated all the excessive pageantry and rigamarole that went along with the big game. I still do dislike that aspect of the game. Now that I actually appreciate and enjoy watching a football game, I just wish all the hype could go away and let the two best teams in the league play ball. 

All that having been said, I decided not to attend any Super Bowl gatherings this year. I didn't care much about either of the two teams in the game, and also didn't care much about most of the players. When Carol asked if I wanted to join her in making and canning some homemade apple butter, I said yes! A couple different sets of visitors from Washington this past fall brought troves of delicious, fresh apples with them and we are all still working our way through the many bushels.

The process was really pretty easy, although a little time consuming.  Throughout the afternoon and evening we had a few minor setbacks with appliances, but got it figured out in the end. We had no power outages, nor did we have Beyonce in the kitchen performing a half-time extravaganza (although that might have been fun!), and there was no purple confetti streaming down when we were ultimately victorious over the boiling-water-bath canning method, but it was still fun.  Can't wait to dig in to the apple butter and give it a try!

Maybe next year we will try orange marmalade or lemon curd. :)

Taking the food mill for it's final spin- it unfortunately went kaput during the apple butter adventure.

In the end, 1 pint jar and 4 half-pints of delicious apple butter!

Canned Meat

It seems like I spend a lot more time than I ever could have envisioned for myself thinking about meat.  I married a man whose family raises cattle, and who likes to hunt, and just plain likes to eat meat.  According to my husband, fruits and vegetables are what real food eats, after all!

Since we raise our own cattle, we keep a few back each year for our own beef.  A lot of discussion among family members has transpired recently over which local butcher is the best for cutting beef in a sanitary and professional manner.  I contribute nothing to this conversation other than to ask for what is probably the thousandth time, the difference between various cuts and where on the animal they come from. I always thought beef's beef, right? Not so.

One cut that Carol typically asks for is "canning meat."  Canning meat is large chunks of beef that are basically left over after all the other cuts are taken off the animal.  Typically tougher pieces, it is perfectly suited for the canning process.

I had never heard of canned meat other than as an army ration, a la SPAM, or as an insult pre-teen boys throw at each other as playground threats.  "Johnny, if you don't get outta here, you're as good as canned meat!" Well, I guess I probably never heard anyone call someone else canned meat, but it sure sounds like it could be used that way.

The first time I saw canned meat, I had no idea what it was.  Absolutely no idea.  Once I found out, I remember thinking-- why in the world would anyone eat that?!  It looks semi-unappetizing, if you ask me, and especially if you're not familiar with it.  Mystery Meat from the Road Kill Cafe.

I have come around, however.  I have eaten it a few times and it is actually quite good.  Canned meat is a handy week-night dinner solution.  It does not need to be cooked-- just re-heated!  It could also be thrown into soups or stews.

When Carol had planned on canning meat yesterday, I was glad it worked out that I could be there to watch and help with the process.  Here's the photos:

Pack the raw meat into canning jars and cover with water.  Try to eliminate air bubbles.
Spoon 1 teaspoon of salt over the top before screwing on the lid.

Place into pressure canner and cook for 50 minutes at 15psi.
Essentially, the meat is poached in the water within the jars.  

Finished product. Just add veggies and a starch, and you've got an easy, complete meal!
Yum... :)

So there you have it!  I think in the future it would be fun to experiment with pre-seasoning the meat.  So this was my second canning experience, and this one went well, too!

Adventures in Relishmaking

Recently, I had my first experience with canning/preserving-- making homemade zucchini relish! It's a good project during harvest because we can be around the radio in case the guys need help moving vehicles/augurs or need anything else.

Anyone who has ever grown zucchini knows that there always seems to be an overabundance and often you find yourself trying to come up with creative new ways to use it.  While zucchini relish is a lot of work, the end result is delicious and it makes a lot of it.  So, here is my photo-essay on Adventures in Relishmaking!

When you buy zucchini in the grocery store, you never see them this big!
This whopper is about 17 inches long.

Some of the zucchini we used for relish.
We only used the two smaller ones here, so we will have plenty for more batches.

We used  food processor to shred about 10 cups of zucchini. 

We also chopped quite a few onions and a red pepper.
The zucchini, onion, and pepper were mixed with salt (to help draw out excess water) and left overnight. 

This is the mixture after soaking all night.
The next day, we rinsed and squeezed out the excess water and salt using cheesecloth. 

The zucchini mixture is then placed in a large enamel pot and cooked with some spices, sugar,  and corn syrup.
It doesn't look very appetizing here, but it is very tasty, I promise! 

We ended up with four pints of relish to keep and share.  

I really love this little label.
Zucchini relish is great on burgers, sandwiches,  hot dogs, etc.