I just dont think that I will ever get over my fear of pressure cookers. I will never forget the sound of the explosion and my mamas scream and running in to the kitchen and seeing pinto beans all over every square inch of the kitchen and dining room. And burnt beans can smell pretty bad. Then they one by one fell from the ceiling. It was raining pintos.

A pressure cooker should have a small, hard rubber plug in the lid.  If the pressure builds too high, the plug should blow releasing the pressure.  Of course whatever was in the cooker usually comes out in a fine spray — all over the kitchen, but it's not like the metal lid blows off if it's fully closed.  Things like beans and pea soup or pasta are usually the culprits when a vent clogs.  They expand as they cook, and the starch forms a paste than can plug the vent quite easily.  If you read the book that comes with the cooker they give really good advice about how, and more importantly sometimes, WHAT to cook in a pressure cooker.

Blanch, peel, freeze in freezer bags. That is the extent of my canning.

I've never made pickle relish with cucumbers, but I make green tomato pickle relish every year to use up the last of the garden's tomatoes before frost.  It looks and tastes like regular cucumber pickle relish.  I actually like it better, and most people don't know the difference unless I tell them.

This morning I canned 12 half pints and 14 pints of mustard relish using an adaptation of a recipe a friend makes to sell at the farmers' market.  She uses sweet banana peppers, sweet onions, and the same vinegar, sugar, prepared mustard and thickening as the hot pepper butter recipe.

I used hot banana peppers, jalapenos, and a full jar of mustard powder, plus the onions, prepared mustard, vinegar and sugar to make mine.  I used Clearjel instead of flour and water — I really like the way it thickens leaving a clear mixture.  I like my mustard a little chunky – something like a pickle relish stirred into the mustard.  Instead of using the blender or food chopper I chopped everything by hand. (I like to peel and chop…but I REALLY should have put the gloves on before seeding the peppers — I didn't think they were THAT hot.  They were.) The mustard turned out well – just hot enough to sting, but not hot enough to blow smoke out of the top of my head.

I have peaches diced and soaking in the syrup to can peach preserves in the morning. I think I'll try making peach jelly with the peelings and pits, too.  I'm also making a peach marmalade, and a regular marmalade with clementine oranges and meyer lemons.  Sweet oranges, and mild lemons — it should be good.

If I have anything left over after Wednesday's farmers' market I will probably be canning green beans, and making pickles.  I have some cucumbers that will make good dill pickles – those big ones you can buy at the deli.