Picklicious

As I type, I have eight 1/2 pint jars boiling away in a pot on the stove. They are packed with chow-chow, a Southern pickle relish that is a mixture of coarsely chopped green tomato, red and green bell pepper, onion, cabbage, and in this batch, cauliflower (celery is another potential ingredient). I got the idea to make chow-chow about five years ago, but as with many of my projects, I never got aorund to doing it. Not completing the project and forgetting about it are two totally different things, however.

So, as I faced a pile of tomato plants slowly dying from white fly (and other?) infestations and cooling evenings, I decided to cut my losses (ha ha) and harvest my green tomatoes. What does one do with green tomatoes? Chow-chow, of course. (Especially if said green tomatoes are small, stunted tomatoes and not of an appropriate size for slicing and frying.)

So, today I dusted off my canning supplies, got a new jar of apple cider vinegar and a box of jars, and got a-chopping. Some Web sites will tell you that a food processor is your friend for chow-chow, but none of my true Southern-food cookbooks agree. They say you get the best results and best taste from hand chopping. The processor releases too much liquid.

I chopped. I piled in a pot. I added vinegar and sugar and some salt. I boiled and stirred. I poured some pickling spice (sans clove -- I dislike clove) into a cloth bag and dumped it in the pot, too. Then, I started up my spaghetti pot with a rack in the bottom of it with jars and water for sterlization. The pot is about an inch too short, but I can just get it to a boil without boiling water over the entire stove. In a smaller pot I boiled the lids and tongs and funnel and magnetic thingy.

And then I waited for it all to come to a boil. *yawn* I used to have a HUGE pot to do this in, but it took two hours to get all that water to a boil, so I jettisoned it awhile ago.

Finally, everything appeared ready. I drained, funneled, and capped. Back in the water to process. As the pickles were processing, I realized that I've never made pickles before. I've made jam, but not pickles. Hmm. Maybe I should have shown more trepidation about this whole process. Oh well. It's too late now! The pickles are now out of the water and cooling on a rack. It sounds like the tops are getting sucked down. I'll know in a bit if I can put them on the shelf or if they need to live in the refrigerator. Regardless, I also have some shell beans from the farmer's market that I think will be delightful with the chow-chow.

Mmm. Chow.