Cherry Tomato Relish

We are down to the last produce from our small backyard garden before the cold fall weather sets in. The plants are slowly starting to look a little lifeless.

About a week and a half ago, my wife brought in cherry tomatoes from our vegetable garden. This was a huge picking, easily around 6 cups of ripe cherry tomatoes.

The daily reminders started that I better do something with them or her whole gardening effort will go down the drain.

So I decided to create 2 dishes out of these sweet cherry tomatoes – a very healthy cherry tomato relish for the vegans, and a nice baked cherry tomato salad for my other blog. I got done with the relish first so here we go.

3 cups ripe cherry tomatoes (17oz or 485gm)
1 large jalapeno minced, with seeds (4 tbsp full)
3/8 cup Splenda sweetener (granulated)
4 scallions (only the green leafy part of the scallion minced, 3 tbsp full)
¼ tsp cayenne pepper powder
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp cumin powder
1/16 tsp black pepper
1 cup water

Clean the cherry tomatoes and mince them into very small pieces, as small as you can.

In a wok or similar vessel on medium heat, pour 1 cup water. As the water starts to boil, add the Splenda and mix well.  Now add the cherry tomatoes, salt, cumin powder, fresh black pepper, minced scallions, minced jalapeno, and the cayenne pepper. Mix and stir everything well.

After 5 minute of cooking this, take a food crusher and crush the tomatoes as much as possible. Continue to cook on low to medium heat, until the time all the water has almost evaporated and you get a nice thick relish texture.

Note that this relish won’t have the gooey kind of texture since there is neither sugar nor pectin in the ingredient list.

Enjoy this sweet and spicy relish with baked chips, or add it as an ingredient to a sandwich, etc. An absolutely healthy and tasty relish!