Sheree's Homemade Cooking Made Easy

This is a family recipe from back around 1982. We make this every year from cabbage, cucumber, and tomatoes that we gather from the gardens, and it is such an easy recipe to make. You will need the following ingredients:

Recipe yields 12 pints.

Chow-ChowPhoto bySheree

Recipe:

10 cups of cabbage

3 medium size onions

3 bell peppers

4 cups of green tomatoes

3 cups of cucumbers

2 cups of ripe tomatoes

2 hot peppers

1 red pepper

1/2 teaspoon of canning salt

3 cups of white vinegar

2 1/2 cups of sugar

1 tablespoon of mustard seeds

optional: 1 teaspoon of turmeric (for color)

Begin by washing all the produce.

Chow-ChowPhoto bySheree

Using a food processor, or you can chop this by hand, begin shredding the cabbage and cucumbers. I do cut the ends from the cucumbers but I do not peel them.

Remove the cores from the tomatoes and chop them finely.

Chow-ChowPhoto bySheree

Seed the bell peppers and peel the onions and chop them finely.

Leave the hot pepper seeds in the peppers or if you do not wish to add the hot peppers just substitute for some bell peppers.

Chow-ChowPhoto bySheree

After you have shredded and chopped all the vegetables and fruit, since tomatoes are a fruit, place a large stainless steel pot on the stove and heat on medium high with the sugar and vinegar inside. Bring this mixture to a boil. Make sure this pot is at least 7 quart pot.

Chow-ChowPhoto bySheree

Add the mustard seed, salt, turmeric and all the vegetables and bring this to a boil and boil for 15 -20 minutes making sure to stir very often to keep this from sticking.

Chow-ChowPhoto bySheree

While this is boiling, prepare the water bath canner and begin heating it up. You want the water hot by not boiling. Tip: I do this to try to prevent breakage by making sure the temperature in my jars are almost the same as the water in the water bath canner.

Chow-ChowPhoto bySheree

Ladle the hot chow-chow into jars and wipe the rims and add a lid and a canning ring and tighten fingertip tight.

Boil the jars in the water bath canner for 10 minutes. You will have to do this in 2 batches as the canner will only hold 9 pints and this makes 12 pints.

Chow-ChowPhoto bySheree

Remove from the canner and let sit undisturbed for 24 hours. Enjoy!

We enjoy this chow-chow with pinto beans, hotdogs and other meals.