At the height of tomato season, I made a big batch of tomato relish (recipe here), somewhere around 8 quarts of it.
The last time I made a big batch I overcooked it trying to reduce it and we didn't care for the taste, so this time I cooked it until I thought it tasted right. It was still fairly watery at that point, so we've been dishing it out with a slotted spoon to drain it a bit, because it turns a hot dog bun soggy quickly.
To save some time, I drained a bunch of it and put it in a 1 quart container. I saved the liquid that I drained off, which is a combination of vinegar, sugar, salt, tomato juice and the juices from the onions and sweet peppers. I thought it might make a good salad dressing.
Tonight we had salads for supper, with some tuna fish, tomatoes (close to the last from the garden) and cheese. My wife used the relish liquid as her salad dressing, I added it to some Dorothy Lynch (French-style) dressing. I also put some on some steamed rattlesnake beans. It was very good on both.
It would be ironic if we wound up using the excess liquid from this year's relish before we ate all the relish, but it is certainly possible.
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