We have a serious cucumber problem at the moment. I have already shown you a photo of the cucumbers we picked last week. In one day, after being away for 5 days, we picked 17. We ate cucumber every day, gave away as many as we could, made bread and butter pickles, this relish recipe, put 2 in the dog’s big pot and have one left. Good effort I thought, then …
We arrived back in Bridgetown last night to find 19 more cucumbers on the vines. Yes, you read right, 19!!! I spent this evening knocking on my neighbours’ doors offering cucumbers. It is such a pity they all come at once.
This is a very tasty way to preserve cucumbers. We have already eaten a jar of it and highly recommend it.
Again, I searched my books (and I have plenty) but decided on this recipe from bestrecipes.com.au.
- 2 kg cucumbers, peeled and diced
- ¼ cup salt
- 1 red capsicum, diced
- 1 green capsicum, diced
- 250g brown onion, peeled and diced
- 3 sticks celery, diced
- 15g mustard seeds
- 350g sugar
- 430mls white vinegar
- Place the diced cucumber in a bowl and sprinkle it with salt.
- Stand for, at least, 3 hours or overnight. I left mine in the fridge overnight.
- Drain the liquid from the cucumbers.
- Place all the ingredients in a large saucepan and stir over low heat until the sugar dissolves.
- Increase the heat and bring to the boil.
- Simmer until the vegetables are well cooked. The recipe said 30 minutes but I simmered mine for 45 minutes.
- Pour into hot jars and seal.
The recipe does not say to thicken the relish but I decided to as I don’t like mine too runny. I added one 20 mil tablespoon of Clearjel before putting the relish in the jars. I then processed my relish in boiling water for 10 minutes. The recipe does not call for the relish to be processed in boiling water but, because I envisaged it might take a while for us to get through all the jars, I decided to do so.
If you decide to thicken your relish with cornflour (cornstarch), I wouldn’t process it in the boiling water. Cornflour is not stable at high temperatures.
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This sounds perfect for gifts. I planted 6 cucumber seeds and I think I’m grateful for only two plants!
Tandy, I think you should be too. It is no fun having much too much. A wee bit too much is fine but the amount of cucumbers I am getting is ridiculous.
This is another great relish, Glenda. Your pantry must be filled with all kinds of preserved goodies. 🙂
Hi John, it sure is. I just hope we can eat them all before next year!
May I offer a word of consolation -one gardener to another- there is absolutely nothing wrong with simply allowing an overload of veggie production to rot in the garden. Doing so adds valuable fertilizer to the soil. That’s a perfectly good use of your overflow.
Every year I throw away a dozen or so of jars of assorted old preserved things – they don’t last forever, you know – and they take up a lot of space on my shelves! It takes a good number of years to get a good estimate of just how many of this and that you should be growing. But it’s fun planning.
Much better that your garden overproduce than underproduce – happy gardening!
Hi Doc. To let them rot would break my heart. Everytime I make up a pot of dog food, I go to the fridge to see if there is any chutney or relish that has been there a while and throw it in their pot. It is really hard to know what to do with so many cucumbers: next year half the number of plants!!!
Well, my point simply is that if you take an overload of cucumbers and make an overload of preserves, you’re just postponing the time and way that you trash the overload. Yes, the best answer is to learn through experience just how many of everything you should plant – but the world of gardening variables is not a kind one, and you’ll always be wishing you had just a little more – or a little less – of something.
Doc, you are right but it is so hard to throw them out.
Glenda, you and Maus have been SO clever with your gardening – we’re getting a few cucumbers each day, but nothing like those quantities! This relish looks very nice! 🙂
Celia, I have 10 plants!!:(