Apple, (or any fruit you have) pie filling! You could include a recipe, put a cute swatch of fabric on the top, or just tie some twine around the jar, anything for cuteness. Jams are always good, as well as ice cream toppings. With your zucchini, pickle relish is so much better than any store bought relish. With your tomatoes how about a nice basic sauce with recipe card showing how to add spices to use it for spaghetti, soups, pizza sauce etc? Have fun with it and rest assured that anything homemade will be yummy and greatly appreciated!

Zuccini...bread and butter pickles, dill spears, sweet or dill
relish, chow chow,
Tomatoes.... spaghetti sauce and pizza sauce make great
gifts as well as relishes. Personally I love to
can sauces and whole tomatoes look so pretty
in the jar.
The apple pie jam recipe around here somewhere is the best.
if you were closer we could trade, I have 200 pounds of apples and pears and sadly no tomatoes
kim

I made catsup for my daughter. She loved it.

A nice barbecue sauce would use up some of your tomatoes. You could go for sweet rather than spicy.

I had planned on making zucchini relish to enter in the fair anyway so Mom can gift some of those jars if she wanted. I already made 4 pints of a Mixed Vegetable Pickle (Piccalilli) but added hot pepper flakes to it so I don't know if it's too spicy. Were talking Yankees here - they think jalapenos are hot, and mine are esp. hot this year, maybe b/c of lack of rain this month?

BBQ sauce is an option - I know Ball Complete has some recipes, any recommendations?

I second the suggestion of zucchini bread and butter pickles. I like the recipe in Ziedrich's Joy of Pickling. I could post that if you like although I know there are probably dozens of recipes out there.

Tomato ketchup and/or chutney. There is a really good ketchup recipe in Witty's Better Than Store Bought. I have a family chutney recipe that we all love. Again, there are lots of variations out there.

Elaina

I have The Joy of Pickling, might make those with smaller zukes next week. The large zukes are going into relish and chow-chow today and tomorrow - as I said, I was going to do relish anyway, and I've promised chow-chow with the last of my bok choy to the fife and drum corps for cookout on Friday (will just keep in the fridge, won't can, but need time for flavors to blend). Any recommended recipes for that?

Keep the ideas coming - I'll probably be working on the gifts during Oct/Nov (as well as a baby quilt I need done by Xmas).

PS - is ketchup really that popular? I figured people just have their favorite store brand, not sure how much ketchup empty-nester use during the winter anyway.

Just thinking what I would like to get, I love the idea of the pie fillings. Even if the recipients don't bake enough to make their own crust, Intructions for use a homemade or with a purchased crust would be a nice gift. It would be even better for people who might NOT bake. I also love salsa, but you already said that was out. A basic pasta sauce is also nice. Tastes so much better with garden tomatoes than anything they could buy. I am not so much a fan of pickled veggies or relishes. Jam is always good. JMHO. Many people love pickled veggies, I am just not sure they are are widely appealing as pie, pasta and jam. Have you asked your Mom what she would like to give? Maybe she knows what they like.

My mom doesn't really know what they like, and dad doesn't either. I've given jams to her sisters before, one of her BILs is diabetic so I always gave that aunt & uncle salsa. I've never given food (other than the Xmas stollen from their mom's recipe) to my dad's brothers, I know 1 of them doesn't like hot peppers at all. My dad only likes sweet pickles and relishes, DH doesn't like sweet, so I know it's not "one size fits all" even as far as that goes (and I wouldn't make pickles from storebought cukes anyway).

Pie filling sounds good, I'd have to buy a lot of fruit and some Cleargel (or give instructions for thickening after opening, but for non-bakers that may be a turn-off). I guess they could always use it for ice cream topping or a cobbler.

Pasta sauce is sounding better - you think pints are the right size for 2 people, I could make Ellie Topp's Chunky Tomato with Wine (skip the basil, maybe just put in a little dried herbs, after I had some basil go bitter in that recipe I don't want to use fresh in canning again)?

I think pint would be fine for 1-2 people. Depending on how much sauce you like on your pasta, its probably perfect for 2 servings. The reason I like the pie filling is that I can tomatoes myself but not fruit. If they don't do any canning, any of those things would be fine, and the veggie items wold be better for diabetics, obviously.

I often put together a 'meal package' as a gift - a jar of homemade pasta sauce, a package of imported pasta (sometimes I have made the pasta also) and a hunk of good parmesan. Then you could add either some homemade biscotti or a jar of homemade syrup (this year it's raspberry) for ice cream. I usually pack it in a reusable grocery bag. It always goes over really well. It does add additional expense though.
Elaina

I don't know how much my mom wants to spend, I think this is supposed to be "just a little something" but I had thought of the pasta too - we'll see how ambitious I get, maybe I'll make and dry pasta. In fact, that gets me thinking about chicken noodle soup - my grandmother always made her own noodles, maybe a quart of chicken stock with some homemade noodles on the side would be a good gift, at least for my dad's side of the family (and pasta sauce for my mom's?)...