In your shoes, I'd just freeze the corn! But here's a very nice recipe for you:

Corn Relish
3 tablespoons cornflour
1 tablespoon mustard
2 teaspoons turmeric
2 teaspoons celery seed
1 teaspoon curry powder
2 1/2 cups white vinegar
1 3/4 cups sugar
750g corn kernels (fresh or canned)
1/4 cup fined chopped red capsicum
1/4 cup finely chopped green capsicum
1 large onion, chopped

Blend cornflour, mustard, turmeric, curry powder, celery seed with 1/4 cup of the vinegar. Place remaining vinegar and sugar in a saucepan, bring to the boil. Add corn, capsicums and onion, cook gently for 20 minutes. Allow to cool, bottle and seal.

Ann, I don't know what relish recipe you used last year, but here is one from the new Ball "Complete" Book:
Homestyle Corn Relish
4 cups white vinegar
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
2 tablespoons canning salt
8 cups corn kernels
4 cups diced seeded mixed red and green bell peppers
1 3/4 cups diced celery
1 cup chopped onion
2 tablespoons dry mustard
2 teaspoons celery seeds
2 teaspoons ground tumeric
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons clearjel

Combine vinegar, sugar and salt and bring to a boil over medium heat. Gradually add corn through onion, stirring constantly and maintaining boil. Stir in seasonings. In a small bowl combine water and clearjel, making a paste. Stir into vegetable mixture. Reduce heat and boil gently, stirring frequently, until thick enough to mound on a spoon, about 5 minutes.

Process pint jars for 15 minutes in BWB - makes about 6 pints.

I think you maybe could adapt this recipe. Use bottled lime or lemon juice instead of vinegar or use some combination thereof. Leave out the seasonings. Substitute some jalapeno pepper for the bell pepper, just leave the total amount the same. Sub some cilantro for the celery. Since there is 4 times the amount of corn you would have to compare it to your recipe x4. You could leave out the water and clearjel also. And then you can still get away with the BWB. Actually, that sounds pretty good to me!

Ann, I canned a corn and black bean type salsa last year, I was surprised that the corn stood up so well to the processing time necessary for the black beans. Mine had corn, onions, beans, cilantro, cumin and jalapenos and I processed it for the longest time required for any of the ingredients, the beans.

However, the beans seemed to "suck" all the flavor out of everything else and it just tasted like corn and beans with no "oomph" at all. I've used it mixed with regular salsa as a dip and it's good, but it needs a LOT of seasoning.

Annie

I told you so.

Melly may be on the right track. That relish has 6 3/4 cups of low-acid vegetables in addition to the corn, so that gives you a lot of latitude for red onion, peppers, cilantro, etc. The sugar can be adjusted down and all the "relish-y" seasonings left out. The bottled lime juice could be a great touch. (Of course, then you wouldn't get a chance to play with your pressure canner, LOL.)

As Annie suggested, canning as mixed vegetables is a possibility. You can compare times for the ingredients and pick the longest, but I think the USDA Mixed Vegetable recipe would work equally well.

Another alternative is to can a corn salsa "base" which you can use in a wide variety of ways, not just for salsa. You might find the taste is fresher with a mixture of canned and fresh ingredients. Onions, for instance, are easily available year-round. Lime juice can be reamed, frozen in an ice cube tray and then used in this recipe and others. I always keep lime and lemon juice cubes in the freezer.

In fact, right now I'm wondering since cilantro is so fragile, how it might do chopped and frozen in lime juice.

Just some miscellaneous thoughts.

Good luck and let us know what you come up with.

Carol

Here is a link that might be useful: Peppered Corn

Hi all, sorry for the delay getting back to you - sometimes I just don't know where the time goes!

Anyway, thank you all. I am more nervous than you about making substitutions and "winging it", but if I understand your suggestions I can take Melly's recipe - which does look promising - and keep the 8 C corn, keep the other veggies at 6 3/4 C - and it doesn't matter the mix? Onion, peppers, cilantro in whatever ratio I want as long as it's that total amount?

Decrease the sugar - sugar isn't important for safety here, only for taste?

And leave out the mustard, celery, tumeric, water and clearjel?

What is clearjel anyway?

This seems like a lot of lime juice. Since it is lime juice rather than vinegar, can I use less?

The peppered corn recipe looks very tasty as well, I'll try it too. And I will compare that relish to the one I did last year, Daisy - thanks.

DH counted. We have 570 corn plants. And there's only two of us. Fortunately we like giving away fresh produce to our friends!

Thank you.

Ann

It's the acid (the vinegar) that makes it possible to can the relish in a boiling water bath. You couldn't reduce it and still be assured of safety. The same is true of bottled lime juice. It may be more acid than vinegar, but without a lab to test and determine how much less you can use, you have to substitute 1 for 1. There're 3 1/2+ quarts of vegetables there, and with lime juice in particular, you may find it doesn't taste nearly as "acid" as you think. (I haven't made this recipe, but that's a reasonable guess.) Another alternative would be apple cider vinegar, which is less harsh than distilled vinegar.

To answer your other question, corn's low-acid and so are all the other veggies mentioned, so it's generally OK to alter amounts of individual vegetables as long as the total doesn't exceed what's in the original recipe.

Depending on the sweetness of your corn, etc. you may find you do want some of the sugar. All you can do is taste-test until you get a sweet/tart combination that suits you.

Yes, you can eliminate the spices. Any dried spice can be increased or decreased with safety. Or you might want to take out a portion of the mixture and play with adding cumin, dried red pepper flakes, etc. for a salsa taste. See if you can come up with a combination you really like.

The clearjel is a thickener. It's the only one approved for use in canning things like pie fillings (which can also be done in a boiling water bath). You certainly don't need your salsa thickened and even if I were making the original recipe, I'd be inclined to leave it out. That's just a personal preference.

Good luck with your experiments. If you're concerned about what you eventually plan to do, post your "personally modified" recipe here and then Linda Lou or other Forum members can give you some feedback.

Carol