Family and friends are huge fans of this relish that I have been making and canning for over a dozen years now. It has become the "secret ingredient" in my egg salad, chicken salad, tuna salad, and potato salad adding just the right amount of sweetness and flavor to these dishes.
Making sweet relish is a great way to put to use an abundance of cucumbers, zucchini, and summer squash during the garden season. Sometimes I mix all three vegetables together to make this relish. Other times, I like to experiment with color, making an all-yellow relish using summer squash with flecks of red bell pepper in it, for example.
Relish Recipe:
10 Cups grated cucumber, zucchini, yellow squash, or a combination
4 cups onions grated
5 Tablespoons salt
2 cups vinegar
5.5 cups sugar
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp dry mustard
1/2 tsp pepper
2 tsp celery seed
1 tsp cornstarch or 1 Tablespoon Clear Jel (See Note)
1 green pepper grated
1 red pepper grated
Mix the first three ingredients and let stand overnight. Next morning, drain and rinse with cold water. Using your hands, squeeze all the excess water possible from the grated vegetables.
Add remaining ingredients. Boil for 30 minutes, stirring often. Seal in hot jars. (I process for five minutes in a hot water canner.)
Note: The original recipe calls for cornstarch which has always worked well for me. Newer USDA canning guidelines do not advocate using cornstarch. I continue to use cornstarch but have also substituted 1 Tablespoon of Clear Jel. Clear Jel is currently approved for canning.