When I was growing up, my mom made zucchini relish every year, so now I make zucchini relish every year.   One batch is enough to get me through a whole year of tartar sauce, chicken and tuna salad, and hot dogs.  Yes, I know hot dogs are not one of the best things I could be eating, but I love hot dogs and have to have them every once in a while.  I’m a relish, mustard, and onions kind of a gal. Anyway, I made a batch of zucchini relish this weekend, but it barely put a dent in my zucchini supply.

This is a forgiving recipe, and measurements don’t have to be exact. I use honey, but you could use sugar if you want. I tend to like more of vinegary tang than sweetness in my relish, so my recipe uses quite a bit less sweetener than most recipes. Also, most recipes call for celery seed, but we all know how I feel about celery (it’s an evil, vile vegetable and my husband is allergic).  My standard substitution for all things celery is fennel.  If you like a little spice you could add some jalapeno to the recipe.  My husband is a big baby when it comes to spicy foods, so I’m close friends with the many bottles of hot sauce that inhabit my kitchen.  One of these days I’ll get around to giving you my recipe for homemade tequila hot sauce.

Zucchini Relish
1 monster zucchini (about 3 pounds, or 8 cups)
4 large onions (about 1 pound)
2 large red and/or green peppers
4 tablespoons kosher salt
2 1/4 cups cider vinegar
1 1/2 cups honey
1 tablespoon turmeric
1 tablespoon dry mustard
1 tablespoon nutmeg
1 heaping teaspoon ground fennel seed
1 heaping teaspoon ground coriander seed
1 heaping teaspoon salt

Shred or finely chop zucchini, onion, and peppers.  A food processor makes quick work of it.  Sprinkle the 4 tablespoons of salt over the chopped veggies, mix it in well, and set it aside for a couple of hours.  I’ve seen some recipes that call for letting it sit overnight, but I’ve found a couple of hours does an adequate job of drawing out the excess water in the vegetables.

 I went outside and planted a row of snow peas for the fall garden while I was waiting. Then I got my canning gear out, and got my jars washed and ready to receive the relish.

Next, rinse the vegetables well in a fine mesh colander with cold water.  Squeeze excess water from the veggies and place them in a non-reactive pot.

Add remaining ingredients and bring to a simmer.  Continue to simmer for about half an hour, until the relish begins to look a little translucent.   Ladle the relish into jars, and process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes.  Yields about 9 half pints.

I love that something so pretty can also be so useful.  I plant nasturtiums in my vegetable garden as a companion plant to help deter cucumber and squash beetles, as well as several other garden pests. In addition to being helpful in the garden, all parts of the plant are edible.  The leaves and flowers can be used in salads, and earlier this summer I showed you how I make nasturtium vinegar.  I also read some information indicating nasturtium has a place in herbal medicine with antibiotic, antifungal, antibacterial and possibly antiviral properties.  I have yet to confirm if this information is true, and plan to do some digging around.

Yesterday I picked nasturtium seeds and pickled them.  They grow in little clusters of three, and should be picked green for pickling.

Pickled nasturtium seeds are also called nasturtium capers, poor man’s capers, and California capers.  I made a very small batch consisting of 2 small jars.  I’ll probably make a couple more jars before the first frost.

Nasturtium Capers
1 cup green nasturtium seeds
2/3 cup white wine or rice wine vinegar
1 heaping teaspoon kosher salt
12 peppercorns
1/4 teaspoon fennel seeds
2 small bay leaves

Rinse seeds thoroughly.  I placed mine in a bowl with a little salt and had to rub them a little bit to get them clean.  It’s been raining, and the dead blossoms were stuck to the seeds.

Follow standard practices for getting your canning jars ready.  Place 6 peppercorns, half the fennel seeds, and one bay leaf in the bottom of each jar.  Add seeds to jars.  Combine vinegar and salt in a pan and bring up to a boil.  Pour vinegar over seeds.

Place lids on jars and water bath process the seeds for 10 minutes.  It’s best to allow the “capers” to rest in the jars for a few weeks to fully develop their pickled flavor.

I’ve loved nasturtiums ever since I planted some along an ugly wire fence when I was a little girl. They were a vining/trailing variety, and I was amazed at the transformation the bright green foliage and jewel-like blooms brought to the depressing fence that bordered the porch of the house my family lived in at the time.  Later in life I discovered you could eat nasturtiums.  Just like the blooms livened up an ugly fence, they can also liven up a plain salad with their intense color and peppery taste.  Nasturtium vinegar is an easy way to capture the color and flavor of the flowers, so you can have a little taste of summer to brighten up a dreary winter day.  This is so simple, I’m almost ashamed to blogging it.

Stuff some nasturtium flowers into a jar, and pour a mild white vinegar over the blooms. Rice wine vinegar is my favorite to use for herb and flower vinegars.

I’ve made a couple of batches of this so far this summer. I usually pick a few blooms each day and add them to the jar of vinegar over a period of two or three weeks. I like to enjoy the flowers in the garden, and this way I don’t have to pick the plants clean.

After 2-4 weeks the vinegar can be strained and bottled.

Compound butters are a great way to sneak more flavor into your cooking and they also provide a way to preserve short-lived seasonal flavors.  Spring flavors are always favorites, but the window of opportunity is often as short as only one or two weeks.  If you don’t take advantage of that window, it will be a whole year before you get to taste those flavors again.

Ramp butter is extremely versatile.  Use it in any way you would use butter and onion or garlic.  Instead of garlic bread, you could try warm toasty ramp bread.  I love to use ramp butter to make my morning eggs…. even better if I had a fresh morel or two to throw in the pan (no such luck this year).

Ramp Compound Butter
1/2 pound butter, softened to room temperature
Baker’s dozen cleaned ramps, or approximately 6 ounces
Zest from 1/2 lemon or lime
1 to 2 tablespoons fresh lemon or lime juice

Place butter in bowl, set aside. Blanch ramps in boiling water for about 30 seconds, then remove to an ice water bath to stop the cooking.  Blanching the ramps will help them retain a bright green color when you freeze the finished butter.

Squeeze as much water out of the ramps as possible and then chop them up. I like to chop the bulb part finely, and the greens a little on the coarse side so I get a nice pattern in the butter when I slice it off the roll.

Add the chopped ramps, zest, and lemon or lime juice to the butter and blend thoroughly with a spoon or spatula.

On a piece of parchment paper, form the butter into a long log.  Roll the butter tightly in the parchment paper and twist both ends. Store your butter rolls in the freezer until ready for use.

Not only was it Mother’s Day this past Sunday, but it was also my birthday.  On such occasions that my birthday lands on Mom’s Day, I commandeer the whole weekend and make lots of demands.  On Friday evening  I demanded Mexican food, margaritas, and a movie.  Nobody complained because it  meant they all got dinner and a movie too. On Saturday my husband brought me a load of dirt for my newest raised bed.  On Sunday I wanted yard work, gardening, and a walk in the woods to forage wild edibles. I spent some enjoyable time with my family, and came back from the woods with a big batch of one of my favorite spring delicacies, ramps.  Because the season for ramps is only a couple of weeks long, I prolong it by making some refrigerated pickled ramps and compound butter for the freezer. The pickled ramps make a tasty martini (Gibson) garnish. The ramp butter can be used melted over vegetables, on crusty warm bread, to make your morning scramble, or anything in which you’d like to ramp up the flavor (pun intended).

The amounts given below are for each pint of pickled ramps. I like my pickles vinegary, so I never add sweetener to my pickling brine.

Pickled Ramps
Ramps, cleaned and trimmed
1/2 cup rice wine vinegar or white wine vinegar
1/2 cup water
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon fennel seed
1 teaspoon caraway seed
1 teaspoon peppercorn

Place cleaned and trimmed ramps in jars. Combine vinegar, water, salt and spices into a pan and bring to a boil. Pour hot liquid over ramps. Cool to room temperature, cover and store in refrigerator.

Now, it’s confession time. I just gave you the traditional method for pickled ramps. I only make a couple of jars and they don’t last long, so I skip a step. I don’t heat the brine. I just pour it cold over the ramps and stick the jars in the refrigerator.  I’ve also used other spices in the past. You can use mustard seed, celery seed, coriander, thyme, red pepper flakes….. get imaginative.

Not one to be wasteful, I even use the pickling brine. With it’s strong oniony-galicky-leeky flavor (just how do you describe the flavor or ramps?), the brine is wonderful mixed with a little olive oil for a vinaigrette.

Oh, and for the ramp butter, and ramp martini….. stay tuned!