It is stunning to me how much the world of information around canning, preserving and DIY food arts has expanded in the last couple of years. When I first started this blog in early 2009, it was so easy to be familiar with the canon of books on the topic. I had them all and they took up about 18 inches of space on the bookshelf.
Then suddenly, a new wave of books started to flow onto the market. One of the best of this first round was Karen Solomon’s Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It. It offered instruction on canning, easy home dairy items and a variety of other projects that were universally welcomed by home cooks who wanted slightly more control over their food.
Karen recently published a follow-up volume called Can It, Bottle It, Smoke It that is just as delightful as her first book. It includes a handful traditional preserves, as well as instructions for homemade cereals (cornflakes! puffed rice!), miso, rice milk, smoked nuts and so much more.
For those of you who were intrigued but overwhelmed by Charcutepalooza and its many meaty challenges, you’re going to want to take a peek at the Hunt It section of the book. Karen has included a series of accessible, easy to follow recipes for corned beef, pastrami and hot dogs (as well as instructions for how to transform those hot dogs into corn dogs.
Every time I sit down with this book for more than a few minutes, I start to itch for the kitchen. The urge to cook become irresistible. My apartment has seen her Sesame Rosemary Granola, the Basic Barbecue Sauce and the Pickled Grapes (so good).
Last fall when I was in San Francisco, I got to meet Karen. We were both judges at the Good Food Awards and during a break in the tasting, she bought me a cup of coffee and we shared tales of obsessive preserving and cookbook writing. Somehow, that led to a request that I write a blurb for the book’s back cover. Entirely flattered, I was thrilled to do it.
All that said, here’s the point I really want to make. Even if I’d never known the first book, never met Karen and never spent hours pouring over a xeroxed galley copy trying to concisely say why I thought it was so good, I would still like this book. The recipes are super solid. The head notes are full of personality. And the pictures are pretty. It’s definitely a buy it, use it, love it book.
I would love to win a book like that! It would make a great addition to the cook books that I am slowly collecting! My biggest kitchen project is to get some meals made and frozen before the new addition to our family arrives in Septemeber, just want to make the first couple weeks home easier by not having to worry about cooking! I also have tons of jam to make! I am also going to use the fresh produce from this year to make some baby food!
Today I’m going to tackle homemade peanut & almond butters!
i just found an old canning pot in my boyfriend’s parents attic last night. it is dying to be used, i’ve got no excuse now. i’m thinking tomato sauce!
My kitchen project is to make lots of my own baby food and preserve it..things like fresh purees and applesauce. The day is fast approaching when I will need it for my twin babies!
I just made cucumber pickles for the first time last week and it was so easy/yummy I want to learn how to pickle all sorts of different vegetables! Also I’d love to just expand my tomato-only canning knowledge!
I’m almost to the bottom of a delicious jar of apple butter. I’d like to make a batch of my own now. It’s delicious.
I’d like to try cheesemaking, just don’t have the patience to wait on the cheese.
My list has cheesemaking and pretzel baking at the top!
What a great post. I am always referencing Food in Jars to proof my recipe before a canning project. My next goal is homemade bagels, and bread of all kinds really.
Love your site, found it last week via “Country Woman.” My project today is to make one batch of hot pepper jelly, how much can 2 people eat, so far I have made 12 jelly jars!! LOL 🙂
My kitchen project is to make some wine/herb jellies and more relishes. My husband is in the process of starting a hot dog vending cart and my goal is to produce the relishes for them!
I am looking forward to harvesting and drying herbs, before I tear up a few garden beds to rebuild them for the fall season. It was rough growing season, because the beds have been invaded by tree and shrub roots. But my herbs are flourishing and I am think of drying and trying ice cube storage for fresh herbs for the next few months.
I want to can salsa, I used to, but have 2 kids 2 and under right now, and don’t know how I can accomplish it.
I finally sourced goat for a long-planned meal of goat carnitas. I’m also working on making and canning some tomatillo salsa, so that if goat ever comes my way again, I’ve already got the condiments ready!
My big three projects to try this year are homemade fruit leather, some kind of infused vinegar, and peach BBQ sauce. Thanks for having the giveaway!
I’ve been water-bath canning for years, but I’ve never tried a pressure canner … and I’m dying to do it. I need to use my freezer a bit better, too — we’re great at using our summer produce when it’s available, but I’d love to hang onto it a bit longer into the fall and winter.
I just purchased a case of peaches and will be attempting my first jam/canning projects this week!
My kitchen project is learning to use my Cuisinart. It was a gift, and a thoughtful one, but I’ve managed for so long without, that it’s hard to get motivated to pull out that manual.
I don’t think I have any kitchen projects left for tackling. I’ve already rearranged (and added more storage) and canned more than last year. But anytime I get a new cookbook, there appears new projects to tackle.
That sounds like a great cookbook. I’m very intrigued to learn how to make more of those things I didn’t think I could get away from the grocery store. Bring it on!
I am new to canning. I have made my own jam, canned green beans and peaches. I really want to try to tackle making mustard. 🙂
A friend of mine gave me a gallon of fresh-caught (and now frozen) sardines. I would love to learn how to pickle these! I think they’d make beautiful gifts – and good eatin’!
Since I finally got my husband to try really good fresh from the field sweet corn, I see some freezing in my future.
Otheer possible projects include homemade baby food, refrigerator pickles, and actually organizing all my cookbooks so that I can find recipes in a reasonable amount of time. Oh, and organizing my grandmothers recipes into a cookbook for the family.
I am obsessed with SoyBoy Smoked Tofu and really REALLY want to learn how to make it myself so I can stop spending so much money on th’ stuff.
Crackers, and???? That is the problem when you have your list in your head! Once I leave here I will remember them all! It’s a pretty big list.
I adore canning, especially pickles. Just finished a batch of Thai pickles yesterday. I am currently organizing collected pickle recipes into a notebook complete with dividers and sheet protectors. I have been needing to do this for a long time!
I just got the remodelers estimate for redoing the kitchen. My dreams were bigger than the budget. My next project is reorganizing and painting. ;>
Otherwise, I’d say that I want to make cheese and smoke some salmon.
I just started canning jam and jelly this past year, and I would love to learn more about canning and try new recipes. 🙂
I would LOVE to try out the recipes in this book. If it’s recommended by you, I’m sure anything in it is delicious. 🙂 Anytime I make jam, which has been a lot lately since I’m on a jam and fresh bread kick, I seem to come back to your blog for help. You are such an inspiration! I have a long list I want to tackle, to include using locally grown lavender. Top of my list is strawberry-lime jam that tastes as close to a Sonic Strawberry Limeade as possible. I’m addicted to Sonic’s Happy Hour. 🙂
I have recently move in with a man i consider to be the love of my life. He has a daughter, and adopted her half brother who has ceilac’s (gluten arghhhh), since i have known them i have read as many blogs, and as many books as possible on the condition…I want to learn to preserve, to create my own kitchen staples so i am not spending 5 mins per item we get at the grocery, checking for the correct preserving numbers and all the other shoddy stuff that gets in the way of good food. after seeing the recipe in this book for the cornflakes that actually have corn in them….. i really want to try that!!!! It looks amazing…. mad props to Karen.
The days when my great granny stood over her BWB all day are gone but i can imagine her crinkled nose at the idea of carrot jam! lol this made me giggle with delight. I keep her canner planted with herbs and tend it with love. I dont remember her ever looking at a book or recipe for canning. I love everything that has come out now. This book looks great.
Kitchen project i would like to tackle…..simply pickles. I just want crunchy dills this year. Crunchy dills without allum or the ilk. I am thinking grape leaves but will have to research more AND hope my kids (3 of them under 5) will cooperate.
Salsa! I’m moving to the UK next year, where they don’t have the brand of salsa I get, and I’ll have to make my own to have some I really like!
I stockpiled on sweet cherries when they were on sale and am dreaming of finally making black cherry kumquat jam and rhubarb and black cherry jam. And I have pureed sour cherries for chai spiced cherry butter. Then, there’s more nocino to make and porcini to dry. That’s just the start.
i’ve been wanting to make kimchi!
I was hoping to be able to make tomato jam with the abundance of tomatos I thought I would have from my garden this year but, alas, my tomato plant mysteriously died when my niece house sat for me while I was in Alaska for 12 days! So I would like to make applesauce with the apples I have in my freezer from last year that a friend brought me back from upper state NY. Book sounds awesome! If I don’t win it I will be purchasing it I am sure!
Smoke, smoke, smoke is what I want to do! Jam a little too. Another book would be heaven or at least a step closer to it.
I keep meaning to make some maple marshmallows. And today I had the fantastic idea to make some bacon marshmallows. Really I should just get up and do that right now, but it IS a little late.
I didn’t know she had another book! I just bought Jam it, Pickle it, Cure it and love it. I recently made my own mayo, pickled my own beets and hope to soon make my own bacon. My fingers are crossed 🙂
I’m going to make things out of tomatoes when my CSA case comes in a few weeks. Chutney, ketchup, little bit of sauce? Dry some? Not really sure. I’d like to make miso too.
I loved Karen’s last book, the ketchup recipe was so easy and tasty and made me swear never to purchase another jar of overly sweetened commercial stuff again. Looking forward to seeing this one, especially the soda syrups as I have a Penguin Sodamaker.
I am hoping to do some tomato sauce and enchilada sauce canning in the next few weeks.
My next big kitchen project is figuring out how to store my spices in a more organized and useful fashion.
While its not food, its a project to be done in the kitchen! I’d love to try the homemade hand lotion from A Sonoma Garden (http://tinyurl.com/c9yy33).
I’m trying to talk myself into doing some dilly beans! 🙂
I planted nine (NINE!) tomato plants. I plan sauces, preserved tomatoes, tomato jam…
I’ve been been wanting to give water kefir a try for making homemade sodas. But more immediately I just bought three big bags of peaches home today to do something fun with.
I love the sound’s of this book.
Wow, so much — I have been making some basic cheeses, and would love to eventually work up to a rich, creamy, delicious blue. I also want to make creole spiced pickled okra — and plain old dill pickles (as much canning as I have done in the past six months, I’ve never gotten around to making the basic pickle!). The book looks amazing — thanks for the giveaway!
I am mainly just trying to keep up with the produce from the garden. Today I tried a recipe for sweet & hot pickles, and I have a bunch of limes in the fridge that I am thinking about doing a lime curd with.
Sounds like a fabulous book! Want to find a kitchen project using our abundant lavender. That, tiptoeing into pressure canning.
I’ve been dying to make some lowbush cranberry jam and syrup! I’ve got acres of lowbush cranberries and it’s close to picking time, and they’re just begging to be used in a project. (Lowbush cranberries are also called lingonberries in some regions, if I’m not mistaken.)
I want to make yogurt & grind my own meat.