Red Root Relish

Last year, we were getting beets all summer from the farm share and I was storing them up until they reached appropriate amounts and would pickle them. My mother-in-law really likes them, so I made sure to give her a few quarts. This year, I got beets exactly once. And only on the very last day. So I had 8 beets and a head of red cabbage from a previous week. To this I added some red peppers foraged from an abandoned vegetable garden at my husband's place of employment (the chef left but did not take his plants, and the new chef wasn't interested in gardening, I guess) and made Red Root Relish.

The recipe came from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving and was easy. The recipe says it makes 4 pints; I got 3.5. It's very dark red and pretty and it smells great!

We also tried the radish relish on some crackers. I like it. My husband, who likes neither radish nor fennel, declared it, "Not as bad as I anticipated."