Monday Monday....

is dark and dreary and rather blustery.... a typical January morning.... a cup of coffee and one puppy snuggled behind me, another at my feet, life is pretty darn good...on Saturday i went for a bit of a drive, cabin fever finally getting to me, and ended up at Russel's Farm Market....  they had red peppers and cauliflower on 'special' so ended up with a big bag of red peppers and a couple of heads of cauliflower.....
daughter has been hinting at the fact that there was no more red pepper relish left and could i make some...
the jar of relish that she had actually was made by a friend.. so i got the recipe from my friend and sunday morning was spent making relish...
the recipe is very simple, not a lot of ingredients, the hardest part was chopping and grinding the peppers the night before and then doing the same in the morning for the apples....

 Red Pepper and Apple Relish


12 Red Peppers
10 Apples

grind peppers and put in a colander, sprinkle with
2 tbsp of pickling salt

let drain minimum of 4 hrs, best overnight

in the morning
grate or grind peeled and cored apples
add to drained and lightly rinsed red peppers
add
3 cups of white pickling vinegar
5 cups of white sugar
2 tbsps of pickling spice in a spice bag

cook till peppers and apples are soft, and thickened, about 40 mins at about medium low... or low if sticking to bottom of pot...
ladle into hot sterilzed jars, seal

this relish reminds me of a sweet, slightly vinegary jam and is delicious on rice, with meat, on crackers with cream cheese.....

also this past weekend i was sorting out my photos... yes REAL negatives, with REAL pictures... not digital... i must admit i really miss film... it's getting harder and harder to find and expensive to process.. which has encouraged the digital age... unfortunately i think that a great deal of our history will simply vanish... the quick turnover in technology will see to that... remember the 'floppy disc'? cds which are soon becoming defunct, replaced by huge storage external hard drives which will be replaced by..... ???  i still have floppy discs and one very old laptop which i've saved because it still has a compartment for floppy discs... anyways... you see where this is going.... the mom and pop history will vanish quicker than the dodo bird...
i've scanned a few of my pictures just to post here...
i took these 2 pictures in Alberta, about 100 miles south of Calgary.. i don't know if those are 'pre-tornado' clouds or not, but definately not something i'd seen before... imagine the wind blowing, distant thunder and standing on the edge of a field in the middle of flat land... was very cool!! i left the date on the picture, just for historical sake... i should actually hunt down the negatives and scan them.. some day!

if you've noticed some changes in my blog your correct... i've been trying hard to organize it, so one could find that old recipe of Grandma Wilson, or how to made Antipasto... i've change the header, put in a spot for 'home' so i can change the photo once in awhile and added a few more links to some great blogs...

just a quick mention of a GREAT blog, done by a friend of mine...

Rambling Jill  if you haven't checked it out please do.. you will see some truly spectacular underwater photography.... jill and her husband are friends of mine, on 'vacation'... national geographic move over!!!