Friday, November 04, 2005

The Green Tomato Relish Caper

Emerson recently mentioned that he needed to pick all of the tomatoes before the first frost. So the evening that I heard it was supposed to frost, I said to Emerson: "If you want to get those tomatoes in before the frost you'd better pick them tonight." His grumpy reply was: "Well, why should I bother picking them if you're not going to do anything with them?!?"

He picked them.

Sigh. So now I felt compelled to "do something with them". I got on the internet and found a recipe for green tomato relish (actually it was called "Indian Relish"), that sounded like it might be pretty much like what his mother and sister used to make. So I gathered the rest of the ingredients, found some jars, bought some more jars, and set to work chopping all of the igredients.

Sigh. There were a LOT more tomatoes than I realized. Tuesday evening, I had just finished making the SECOND batch of 16 pints of relish. All the jars were filled. All the rounds and rings were in place and I was waiting to hear the jars "ping" indicating that they had sealed. While I was waiting, I began to clean up the mess from all the chopping, cooking, and jar filling. I happened to lick the spoon out of the pan.

Gasp!! Choke!! Sputter!!! I had left out one very important ingredient--the SUGAR!! Oh, it was so awful. Emerson suggested just putting sugar in as we opened each jat--but really, it was SIX CUPS of sugar that I had left out!!!

Big Sigh. I opened all the jars and dumped them back into the pan. I added the sugar. Turned the heat back up. I washed all the jars and lids. I put them back into the dishwasher so they would be hot again. Finally, all the jars were filled for the second time. And with great apprehension I waited for the "pings". This time, when I tasted the relish--it was sweet and quite tasty.

Now isn't that how Jesus is in our lives??? Without Him, our lives are all vinegar, salt, and onions. Very sour and completely awful. But when you add Jesus! How Sweet it is!! He doesn't take away the vinegar. He doesn't take away the salt. He doesn't tke out the onions. He just sweetens everything and makes life SO MUCH better. He makes it all come together into something good.

Hmmmm....I think the Bible says something like that....

"All things work together for good, for those who love God, and are called according to His purposes." Rom. 8:28

I'll be remembering to add sugar to my green tomato relish from now on. And healthy portions of Jesus to my daily life--to keep it sweet!!

9 comments:

Corry said...

It is so much better:-)
Aren't you glad you found out before it really was too late, in both cases?

I am grateful God showed me!

God's Grace.

Joyce said...

AMEN!!!

Jenny said...

Joyce, my friend! How is it you do that? Always finding God in every single event of your life?

You are truly amazing. Especially with all of the food analagies! Remember the pepper one? hehe

**hugs**

Thank you for sharing and I hope you don't mind if I make my readers come here.

David Edward said...

Jayleigh 'made' me come here.
BUT I AM GLAD I DID!
we managed a peach relish from spring peaches that were in the freezer, I do dnot know the recipe, because I was just the gut in charge of getting it into the jars, into the hot water and out again. Since then I have made another batch of spiced apricot jam and two pots full of applesauce. I will do anything ( like blogging) to avoid the moving I must do this week.

Chipper said...

I've done that before--you're not alone! I'm glad you were able to fix it--I didn;t realize my mistake until well into the winter!

Shelley L. MacKenzie said...

Hi, I'm here via Jayleigh. Great post, I enjoyed reading it! Have a Christ filled day!

Joe said...

Hi! I came over from Jayleigh's site.

What a wonderful application!

Thanks!

Jenny said...

Ooooh! SALSAAAAA!!!

Joyce said...

Wow! I hadn't checked my blog in many days--and was I surprised and delighted to see all the readers!!

Thanks, Jayleigh, for sending people my way! I love hearing from new people!!

Thanks to all of you for writing.