Sweet Tomato Relish

Agh! So frustrating! My computer is gone–AGAIN.

So John decided to get a hard drive to back up the computer–something about how you can program a Mac to automatically back everything up if you have a second hard drive, and in a moment too difficult to explain (according to him) of “computer scientist stupidity” he erased all my ITunes and all my pictures. In case you don’t know I have well over 5,000 songs and I have 2 toddlers and I have not organized any holiday photos yet so neither of these is insignificant. Now the computer is gone, being fixed so the professionals can retrieve the music and pictures. We hope.

Which means I am without photos again.

To make matters worse, I am late even making my Taste & Create recipe because this past weekend my grandma began the agonizing process of succumbing to her battle with Alztheimer’s. She has been taken off of all meds other than those to make her comfortable–and frankly comatose while the rest of us hover around in a state of suspended grief. So anyway I was home this past weekend to help out and sit with her. I did not stay long though because at a certain point the kids are an exhausting hindrance rather than cheerful distraction.

So with my apologies to Susan of Life at Quail Hollow, I am finally getting around to posting the recipe I made from her blog. I will post the picture when I can upload one, probably a day or 2, providing I don’t have to rush home for anything to do with my grandma–if you don’t hear from me that is where I am.

Life at Quail Hollow is a really warm and inviting place to spend a few hours, with a focus on Southern food. Originally I wanted to make her Lemon & Rosemary No Knead Bread (the link to the lemon/rosemary variation is in the comments of that post), but with John getting sick and me leaving town my entire week’s menu plan got messed up–and the no knead bread needs to be started a day in advance and I frankly am not that organized yet and the Taste & Create deadline is today! So, knowing that I did not have time to do a full meal, I instead stumbled on this Sweet Tomato Relish.

I realize it is not tomato season so I figured I would do a much smaller recipe using canned tomatoes and make more this summer if I like it (which I do). Of course if I have not learned to can by then I will be freezing my portions of it, unlike Susan!

In my household this relish is basically a chutney that will be used on Indian food for sure–although since it is spice-free (except the chile pepper flakes) I would like to force myself to go outside the box and use it on other foods. I love the idea of sweet-hot-tart chutneys on just about anything as you guys probably can guess! I made the banana pepper-less version, and my only changes were to add garlic (6-8 cloves) and use a lot more chile pepper flakes (I used 2 teaspoons of the Penzeys Pakistani Hot flakes which are super hot for 1/4 of her recipe). I also eyeballed the cider vinegar and probably used more because I love vinegar.