Double Tomato Relish

I am in recovery mode today.  Well not totally.  There were still cherries to pick, laundry to do, dishes, general clean up – you get the picture.  We had a birthday party/cookout here this weekend and, in addition, two grandaughters that stayed with us for the weekend, plus our younger son and his awesome girlfriend were here for most of the weekend.  The birthday boy was our grandson, who just turned 10.  Both sides of the family were here, so there were 8 kids and, including  we two, 10 adults.   These things usually have higher attendance, but some were out of town, some had to work, and one family had sick kids.  The pool was full of kids for most of Saturday, then again on Sunday.  I don’t believe there were more than two dry towels left in the house.  And that only because I have a large stack of beach towels for this reason.

If I sound like I’m complaining, I am certainly not.  It was worth every second!  We had an awesome day/weekend!

One of the fun aspects to me is the food preparation, because obviously I love to cook.  Several old faithful recipes were  used and several new ones made appearances.  Loaded baked potato salad, homemade salsa, and old fashioned baked macaroni and cheese were all favorites revisited.

Then I threw in a few new ones.  I will get to all of them eventually, including the old favorites.  But for now…

Double Tomato Relish.  There is no vinegar here, no cucumber, so it’s not a pickle relish.  I saw the recipe and I think what caught my attention was the sun-dried tomatoes.  Yum.

It is quite delicious.  The combination of sun-dried and fresh tomatoes is great.  You get the intense tomato flavor with the sun-dried tomatoes, but the fresh ones keep the flavor brighter and more summer-y.  This recipe makes about 2 cups, which is quite a bit for a relish.  You might want to start with 1/2 all the amounts and make one cup.  That way you don’t have a bunch left over, at least until you find out who likes it, as it is definitely best served the same day.

I put it on a hot dog and thought it perfect.  My son, the vegetarian, wanted to schmear it on a sandwich that included fresh mozzerella.  Ooohhh…I second that one.