Slice of Life Story - An Unplanned Pickle Project!

Yesterday I made green tomato pickle. I picked the last of the tomatoes from our small vegetable garden, found a recipe for green tomato pickle relish and set about producing a few jars of this delicious condiment. Today when I entered the house, I could smell the sweet remnant smells of the previous day’s cooking. The blending of tomatoes, onions, apple vinegar, sugar and spices were lingering in the air. There was a time when I’d regularly do cooking and preserving of our home grown produce, but other things has pushed this activity to the back of the queue in recent years. It was most satisfying to reconnect with such therapeutic activity. Cutting the onions and apple, blanching the tomatoes and then removing the skin, combining them in a large pot on the stove and adding copious amounts of vinegar, sugar and spices was fun. Then I found myself with the task of constant stirring over the simmering pot as the ingredients softened; the mingling aromas tickling my nose. The best thing about this spontaneous task was that I found myself involved in something that disconnected me from the computer.

In those jars I have a spread to savour and enjoy across the coming months. My father used to make green tomato pickle. I recall it well. The smell, the taste and the sight of long glass jars filled with the yummy green spread all came flooding back to me in yesterday’s little endeavour. It prompted me to make labels for the jars, such was my pleasure in this unplanned pickle project! 

Comments

  1. When our children were young we had a big garden. We canned or froze most everything from the garden including relishes, pickles, and dilly beans. Those days have been traded since we are empty nesters. Now we travel, golf, boat, and yes compute. I bet making that relish was satisfying and probably brought back some fond memories for you.

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  2. As I started reading, I had to figure out where in the world someone would be growing tomatoes.

    I, too, remember food made by someone in my family and I understand the reminiscing that occurs when it happens! Thanks for helping me remember some of my own favorite foods from my grandparents.

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  3. Wow, Alan, I love sour tomatoes. We used to buy ours in the summer from the pickle man who can around in his black Buick. No back seat. Just a flat platform from the back of the front seats covered with containers of pickles. And he had lots of samples before we had to choose.
    Sour tomatoes- always my favorites. I still buy them in the grocery store, but they are never the same.
    I'll bet yours would take me back,
    Bonnie

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  4. Wow, Alan, I love sour tomatoes. We used to buy ours in the summer from the pickle man who can around in his black Buick. No back seat. Just a flat platform from the back of the front seats covered with containers of pickles. And he had lots of samples before we had to choose.
    Sour tomatoes- always my favorites. I still buy them in the grocery store, but they are never the same.
    I'll bet yours would take me back,
    Bonnie

    ReplyDelete
  5. Isn't it amazing how creatively therapeutic and quieting cooking can be? I could smell your pickles!

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  6. I so admire your ability to do this! I can barely cook anything from scratch without a recipe nearby. Also, I don't have much of a green thumb but I am trying to turn that around this summer with my first attempt at a garden in my first home! Thanks for the inspiration!

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  7. So, when are you going to post the recipe? Or send it along? I always seem to time my tomatoes wrongly and am yanking out the vines with lots of green toms on them. I usually set them in the window to ripen, but this sounds fabulous. Given that I'm not familiar with it--do you use it like regular pickles, or do you serve with a savory dish, like a roast or something.

    Fun post--
    Elizabeth
    http://peninkpaper.blogspot.com/

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