In A Pickle

      Before Christmas, I bought a jar of Claussen bread and butter pickles from the refrigerated deli case at the store.  I hadn't had that kind of pickle for quite awhile and I salivated thinking about how good they would taste.   When we lived in the country, my specialty was Lime Pickles and so really looked forward to a sweet pickle.  I tried opening them when I got home and the lid wouldn't budge, I banged it on the counter,... nothing!
     Tried opening them several times, banging them on the counter, hitting them on the bottom, hitting the edge of the lid with a knife handle, still no results.  Even used my plastic guaranteed jar lid opener with the same results.  We were gone through the holidays and when I got home I did my usual annual deep house cleaning, which entails checking the dates on the condiments on the refrigerator door and getting rid of anything that is over the expiration date.  I noticed those pickles again -  again, I banged and hit - no luck.  Last week, I was telling my sister, Judy, and she suggested running the lid under warm water that that sometimes helps.  I did and it worked!  But what I noticed is that the warm water had gotten under the plastic protection ring around the lid as well.   Times like this, I can't believe how dumb I can be.  I never thought about the plastic ring.  Oh well, the Claussen bread and butter pickle slices are excellent.  Try them,  and now when you take the protection ring off a jar lid, you will think of me.  My legacy!!
     I was going to share my Lime Pickle recipe, but couldn't find it, so am enclosing the first recipe I ever got from someone. 

                                                        Aunt Orphie's Relish
4 chopped onions
6 sweet red peppers
10 green tomatoes
4 cups shredded cabbage
12 green peppers
    Grind vegetables coarse.  Sprinkle 1/2 cup of salt over them and let them stand over night.  Rinse with two cups of water and drain. Combine:
2 tblsp mustard seed
1 1/2 tblsp tumeric
6 cups of sugar
4 cups of vinegar
1 tblsp celery seed.
    Heat to boiling.  Simmer three minutes.  and can while hot.
   
     I made this recipe towards the end of the garden year, sometimes adding zucchini, to use up the late vegetables.  I always used pint jars and  used my warm water bath canner.

    Now for the rest of the story.  Long before the world ever heard of an Oprah, in our family it was Aunt Orphie.  Our mother's older sister Ada, had five children, two daughters and three sons,  and somewhere along the way she had a nervous breakdown when her children were quite young and spent the rest of her life if the Jacksonville State Hospital.  Her husband, Jesse Swinford,  was a farmer outside of Oakland, Il.  He had a cousin, Orpha Hunt, who had been left to raise three sons and she moved in to help raise Jesse's five and have a home for her and her boys.  Even though she was not related to us, she was a good, kind, hard working woman,  that we called Aunt Orphie, everyone did.  She gave me this recipe for relish or 'Chou,Chou' as she called it when I was newly married and we had traveled down to Southeastern Illinois for a funeral.