Green Tomato Relish

Thus far, we've been able to use quite a few of the green tomatoes we saved from the frost. We've had green tomato soup twice, and the Huz said if his mom would have had the recipe years ago when he was a kid, he wouldn't have minded about her wanting to use up the green tomatoes. And for the past couple of days, I've also been peeling, coring and chopping green tomatoes to make green tomato relish. It takes me about an hour and a half to get enough prepared and chopped for one quart, let alone four quarts, but after a very long couple of initial chopping sessions yesterday and two more such sessions today, (plus finally asking for a little help from the Huz) I finally got enough total chopped for my four quarts. It nearly used up all the green tomatoes that were still good, and we'll be able to use the rest of the green and/or indoor-ripened tomatoes over the next few days, so the annual bout of "what do we do with the tomatoes?" is nearly over.

The recipe for green tomato relish is from the Ball Blue Book, and it wouldn't be nearly so bad if it weren't for the need to peel, core and chop. My neck and shoulders hurt a lot from all the chopping, and for a while there, my right hand was starting to get sore as well. But the chopping is finally done, and the tomatoes, peppers, onions and cabbage for the relish is sitting there, salted, working on the second step of the process. We'll see how it all turns out. Based on the sheer amount of work involved in making it, this had better be the best darned relish ever.