Ain't Yo Mamma's Chow Chow

One of my favorite meals that my Mother in Law would put on the table was called "Chow Chow Meal".

It consisted of homemade chow chow, saltine crackers, mayo, ham, coon cheese (a sharp cheese) and ice tea. I can still image the smell of her house and visualize the image of us sitting at her table enjoying such fine cuisine while engaging in interesting conversation! What sweet memories!  Unfortunately, when the Lord called Mom C home, no one had made sure that she had left behind the recipe for her Chow Chow.  

Recently Tiff and Jason came to visit and brought us a jar of Louisiana chow chow, it got me to thinking that I should try my hand at making chow chow.  I can't make Mamma Courtney's recipe, however, I have affectingly named my version of Chow Chow "Ain't Yo Mamma's Chow Chow"......so 21 pints later, here is my recipe.  

Easy Chow Chow

Grind the following ingredients:

1 Gallon Green Tomatoes

1 Gallon Cabbage

8 Large Onions

2 – 6 small hot peppers (diced and seeded)

4 – 6 Bell Peppers

4 Bell Peppers

Put the ingredients listed below in a sauce pan and let it come to a boil for a few minutes. Then pour it over the ground up vegetable ingredients and let all of it cook until good and tender.  (Mine cooked about an 1 – 1 ½ hours on medium high , stirring from time to time)

1 ½ pints white vinegar

2 ½ sugar (or splenda)

*1 tsp allspice

*1 tsp dry mustard

*1 tsp turmeric

Pack in hot jars and seal.

 *****I cooked my chow chow till it was a consistency that I thought was good and then canned it the traditional way of boiling my lids and putting mixture in hot jars.

Also, I didn’t use the allspice, dry mustard and turmeric.  Instead, I used pickling spice and put it in cheesecloth and made a seasoning packet.  I boiled it in the vinegar / sugar mixture and continued cooking it in the chow chow mixture.

**Disclaimer - inside of one of those jars of chow chow you will find one of my cheesecloth seasoning packet.  Oops!

** Also, I used 4.28 lb onions, 3.67 lbs tomatoes, 10.46 lbs cabbage, 1 1/2 lb green peppers and it made 21 pints.