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A recent chilly Saturday morning, found our good friend, Jerry
arriving at Bret's Table. He was here to share his wonderful
family recipe for Christmas Pepper Relish; a beautifully colored
concoction made with red and green bell peppers, onions and
assorted spices.
We piled into the car and headed to the local farmer’s market in
downtown Saint Paul MN. Every Saturday morning finds us
wandering through the rows of vegetable stands choosing our
weekly supply of what's in season. This time of year it's an
abundance of leeks, onions, squash, cauliflower and Brussels
sprouts just to name a few. Of course we must start our visit
with a delicious, grilled bagel; the choices are many: from an
egg, ham and cheese to a veggie everything on almost any
imaginable bagel you could want or desire.
After our short respite of bagel munching we gathered the troops
and started up and down the aisles looking for the best of the
best for the relish. We made the entire loop of the market before
returning to a couple of farmers who had the best selection of
peppers that we needed. Since I can never just leave a recipe
alone, in addition to the green and red peppers I wanted to add
some yellow ones to give more color to the relish.
Of course, along the way we stopped to visit our friend from
Maple Leaf Farms, Mark Christopher. (By the way, I'm in the
process of developing recipes for some of the fruit he'll have
next year at the market.) And, no market visit is complete
without saying hello to Mary, Dave and Andy of Love Tree
Farms and tasting some of the best darned goat, sheep and cow’
s milk cheese you’ll ever put in your mouth. Both of these
farmers put a lot of effort in to their wares as do all of the
farmers, but over the years these folks have enlightened us with
their knowledge about the produce they grow and products they
sell.
With our purchases made we were off to make our way back
Bret’s Table to start making relish. Jerry has such fond
memories of making this special treat as a child. He even had the
original meat grinder from his family’s tradition that we used for
grinding up the peppers. We discovered pretty quickly that the
onions don’t work so well in the grinder so we converted to the
new fangled food processor for that chore.
It was a lengthy process but in the end we canned over 60 jars
of this delicious colorful treat; all the while sharing stories of our
families and the things that we did with them as we were all
growing up. At the end of the day we were all tired but sat
around knowing that we had shared a very special bond with
each other and had helped to bring back such many, many fond
memories for our friend.
arriving at Bret's Table. He was here to share his wonderful
family recipe for Christmas Pepper Relish; a beautifully colored
concoction made with red and green bell peppers, onions and
assorted spices.
We piled into the car and headed to the local farmer’s market in
downtown Saint Paul MN. Every Saturday morning finds us
wandering through the rows of vegetable stands choosing our
weekly supply of what's in season. This time of year it's an
abundance of leeks, onions, squash, cauliflower and Brussels
sprouts just to name a few. Of course we must start our visit
with a delicious, grilled bagel; the choices are many: from an
egg, ham and cheese to a veggie everything on almost any
imaginable bagel you could want or desire.
After our short respite of bagel munching we gathered the troops
and started up and down the aisles looking for the best of the
best for the relish. We made the entire loop of the market before
returning to a couple of farmers who had the best selection of
peppers that we needed. Since I can never just leave a recipe
alone, in addition to the green and red peppers I wanted to add
some yellow ones to give more color to the relish.
Of course, along the way we stopped to visit our friend from
Maple Leaf Farms, Mark Christopher. (By the way, I'm in the
process of developing recipes for some of the fruit he'll have
next year at the market.) And, no market visit is complete
without saying hello to Mary, Dave and Andy of Love Tree
Farms and tasting some of the best darned goat, sheep and cow’
s milk cheese you’ll ever put in your mouth. Both of these
farmers put a lot of effort in to their wares as do all of the
farmers, but over the years these folks have enlightened us with
their knowledge about the produce they grow and products they
sell.
With our purchases made we were off to make our way back
Bret’s Table to start making relish. Jerry has such fond
memories of making this special treat as a child. He even had the
original meat grinder from his family’s tradition that we used for
grinding up the peppers. We discovered pretty quickly that the
onions don’t work so well in the grinder so we converted to the
new fangled food processor for that chore.
It was a lengthy process but in the end we canned over 60 jars
of this delicious colorful treat; all the while sharing stories of our
families and the things that we did with them as we were all
growing up. At the end of the day we were all tired but sat
around knowing that we had shared a very special bond with
each other and had helped to bring back such many, many fond
memories for our friend.
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