Oh, joy. Last night, I finally found the perfect use for the home-canned pepper relish I made a year and a half ago, and am still stuck with....

I had stumbled upon the most awesome windfall back then. Through connections, I was invited to pick from our local college's agricultural research gardens -- plot upon plot of heirloom tomatoes, peppers, squash and beans, all organically grown. The precious seeds had already been collected, thus the research was over -- and all the beautiful produce left to rot (but not before I charged out there with boxes and buckets to have my way with it, heh). Such a bounty, with me shlepping home every variety of pepper and tomato. Anyway, the tomatoes were easy -- canned most of them, using as many peppers as I could (in salsa, sauces, etc). I also chopped dozens upon dozens of peppers to freeze in bags -- but still had buckets to use up. Finally, in desperation I dug out a few pepper pickle/relish recipes -- using up the remains, whew. But guess what. Everything from that season has long since been consumed (aside from the tomato butter -- that's another story), EXCEPT for ... what else? Right. The relish. Nobody liked The Relish.....

So..., I've been sneaking The Relish into my cooking a little here and there, whenever possible (a tablespoon in the potato salad, a sprinkling in the canned corn, etc). But finally, I had the bright idea last night to add some to the pasta sauce I was scratch cooking from (store-bought) canned tomato sauce and paste. Success!!! Why haven't I thought of this before??? The sauce turned out really well -- zesty and rich, compliments of the sweet/spicy, relished peppers. And I was able to use up a goodly dollop. I see lots of relish-kissed pasta and pizza sauce in our future -- consumed with gusto! What a relief (because throwing out The Relish was NOT an option)....