Putting Up More by Stephen Palmer Dowdney is an excellent canning cookbook for those who want to push the boat out and explore a world of preserving projects that are outside the typical array of recipes.
Stephen Palmer Dowdney’s first book, Putting Up
was one of my very first canning books. I bought my copy in early in 2009, around the time when I first started this blog. I used it as starting place when I made my first batch of pickled asparagus (how long ago that feels!) and I continue to reference it on a regular basis.
While walking by the Cookbook Stall at Reading Terminal Market about a week ago, I happened to spot Putting Up More
in the window. I was surprised, as I hadn’t heard anything about a new canning book from Dowdney, but I stopped and bought a copy right there and then (let’s hear it for supporting local book shops!).
One of the things that makes Dowdney’s books stand out in the pack of canning volumes is the perspective from which he writes. He owned a commercial canning operation for more than 10 years and so isn’t as tethered to the home canning practices to which we all cleave. He sterilizes his jars in a bleach solution instead of a canning pot or dishwasher, utilizes the inversion method for sealing, skips a processing step for hot pack recipes and even gives you the intellectual tools necessary to check the pH levels of your goods.
Though he doesn’t specifically say it, his instructions on how to test acidity and how to adjust to bring your goods into a safe range is the information so many of us have been looking for. As long as you’re willing to follow his directions (to the letter), this technique will finally set you free from the confines of tested recipes. If this sounds appealing to you, I recommend that you get your hands on both Putting Up and Putting Up More, as they’re designed to work as companion volumes.
He includes a section of canning notes in each recipe, which details whether the recipe is one that will need to have its acid levels tested, what the yield will be, his recommendation for jar size (a hugely helpful bit) and whether the recipe can be safely increased or decreased. Dowdney has also taken a great deal of time to offer up suggestions on how to use and serve each recipe. For those of you who make things and then question what the heck to do with them, this is fantastic.
Other high points of this book include the safe for canning soups (including butternut squash, which I imagine will make some USDA canners devotees freak out), an entire section devoted to products made from hot peppers and an eggplant chutney that sounds incredible. As soon as the eggplant, peppers and summer squash are in season, I’m making it.
Because I think they’re excellent books, I’m giving away the pair of Putting Up and Putting Up More. This is not a publisher-sponsored giveaway, I just think these books are wonderful and I want to support Stephen Palmer Dowdney and the work he does in creative, inspirational canning.
In totally other news, I just started another year of a photo a day over on my other blog, Apartment 2024 (I used my birthday as the start). If you’re curious about what else happens in my life, feel free to take a peek. Recently, I drank a really tasty glass of iced coffee with condensed milk, voted in my local primary election and took a day trip to New Hope courtesy of Chevy.
My husband and kids are desperate for me to make a lot more of the tomato jam recipe I got from your blog last summer. I’m also looking forward to 4 berry (aka berry bomb) jam.
As I start my second year of preserving, I would like to try salsa, ketchup, chutney. I love making marmalades. Thanks Marisa 😉
I really am looking forward to trying pickles this year.
My previous attempts at canning have never quite worked out, so I would be interested in taking a look through these books. My husband loves figs, so I’m hoping to get some fig preserves done later this summer.
I am really looking forward to raspberries for raspberry jam. It’s my favorite fruit to pick, and eat.
I’m looking forward to “putting up” some pickle relish. Our cucumbers didn’t do so well last year, but managed to make some zucchini relish. Not the same as pickle relish, but it was good. Thanks for the chance at winning these new books!
XoXoXo
Joy
I am really looking forward to canning this summer and making tomato apple chutney. It’s one of my favorites!
I’m looking forward to making Bread and Butter Pickles.
At the tail end of last fall, I learned that the odd fruit clinging to a gangly tree at our new to use home was a quince! You taught me the value of this gnarly little fruit, and this fall I hope to put some up. Thanks for your terrific blog!
I have seen this canning book but I didn’t buy it. The content looks good. Thanks for featuring this book.
Usually regular old pickled cucumbers are my fav but this year I need. more. tomato. sauce. I went through our stash before Christmas!
Favorites are tomatoes followed by strawberry jam, both are done and put away
After tasting ‘Zucchine alla Poverella’ at my friends house in Puglia a couple of years ago, I’m completely hooked! They’re great as part of an antipasti platter, or as a side dish in their own right! Get canning guys! POW!! x
I’m looking forward to canning a variety of new things! We’ve planted a veggie garden for the first time this year, AND we’re signed up for a CSA from a local farm. Can’t wait!
I made Vanilla Rhubarb jam last week and will go strawberry picking this weekend. I planted cornichon cukes this year for the first time so I’m looking forward to pickling those.
I just canned strawberry rhubarb jam yesterday. I am going to try to grow and can potatoes this year
Anything, I guess. This will be my first time attempting canning as well as my first year with a garden–if the weather finally decides that it’s spring for real.
I am looking forward to dilly beans (finished the last jar a month ago) and homemade salsa. Also hot banana peppers and bread & butter pickles. Can’t wait…
I’m growing eight varietals of heirloom tomatoes this year, and I’m particularly looking forward to canning a sauce made from them–combining roasted, stewed, and dried/minced tomatoes.
I’m looking forward to making pickled green beans (again) and trying to make jam for the first time. I’m so excited for canning season!
I’m trying a new recipe this year, watermelon-pepper jam. We’ll see if I can get it to work.
These books slipped by me somehow… sounds like just what I’ve been looking for! I’m one to push a recipe pretty far…. good to have guidelines.
My list of pantry must haves is pretty extensive so experimental extras come after. Anything that makes me think of summer in the winter – roasted corn relish, beet relish, fresh tomato sauce (frozen), whole tomatoes, strawberry, plum & peach jam…
Also our must have condiments: onion marmalade and roasted garlic ketchup.
I’d like to do more canned fruit this year (I made jam from all mine last year), nasturtium capers and more veggie pickles.
I’m jonesing for some homemade peach jam. When I find some in stores, it’s too sweet. Also, I just planted my garden so, if I’m lucky, and everything comes in, I should have lots of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, leeks, zucchini, yellow squash, and herbs to play with.
The books look beautiful. (I miss the beautiful pickles in your header).
My immediate plans include Eggplant Tapenade from that Canning USA site, I must have missed your recipe for eggplant chutney so I’ll go look that up. I’m also going to do a salsa sweet pickle relish, and maybe some watermelon pickles.
It’s been a long wait, but I’m looking forward to peach preserves.
Hot peppers! YES!!
I’m currently living in Portugal but will return to my home, garden and beloved chickens in Minneapolis in 3 weeks! I am looking forward to making my first batch of pickled eggs this summer!!
I am most inspired to make all the berry jams I missed out on last season, as well as lots of pickled peppers which were such a success last Christmas that I somehow was left without even one jar to taste!
I’d like to try to make a mirabelle and vanilla jam this year-I just finished a jar that someone made last year and it was delicious
Strawberry jam please!
Oooh, it’s strawberry jam for me. My absolute favorite! And these books look awesome.
I love to can….I too don’t know what to do with some of the stuff I make…to have suggestions In the book is a wonderful idea!
Dill pickles…can’t wait!!!!!
Being from Alaska, we don’t have much local fruit besides berries (which are wonderful!). I found a fabulous supplier of peaches, nectarines, and other fruits. He personally fills up his truck with fresh produce from California and drives up to Alaska to sell it. It is so much better than anything we can buy in the stores! I cannot wait to can some cherries, peaches, and pears that can be enjoyed all winter long!
I am looking forward to canning delicious peaches this summer! My kids love them and they are so simple to do! Love them! After that, I think I may make some peach BBQ sauce.
Because I really want to be set free! (from the confines of tested recipes.) And you’ve sold me on the Eggplant Chutney. I’m a huge fan of chutneys and have already planted 8 eggplant plants in my garden. And shallots. And tomatoes, lots and lots of tomatoes. And I seem to start a lot of sentences with ‘and.’ And I’m helping my daughters in law learn to can as well. I can sure use those books!
I am looking forward to trying something new this year, to add to my already long list of things I put up. I am curious about cantaloupe jam. So strange sounding.
Ooh, these books look great! (SCIENCE!)
I’m going to, at a minimum, make some jelly based on a recipe I found on Offbeat Home. They say you can save apple peels and boil them for the pectin. As for the kind of jam/jelly, here in AK, I can easily get crabapples (free), raspberries and blueberries (free if you successfully avoid bears and small children :)), strawberries (I’ve grown a few, anyway), and of course everything that comes in the Full Circle boxes.
It’ll be my first shot at canning, though; I’ve never made jam or canned anything in my life. I’m pretty psyched!
Canning is new for me this year! And I CAN NOT wait – I have been scouring this website, Tigress in a pickle and a couple others and writing down recipes – Salsa (which one I don’t know!) will be my first point of call, something with chillies and tomatoes (I could eat it all day) – and guess what? It’s my birthday on Friday, and my brother is giving me mason jars as a present – I can’t imagine what better to go with this than Putting Up! Fingers crossed!
My mama’s Berry Cherry jam. We “rented” a cherry tree this year from a farmer for a most incredible deal. I can’t wait to can all 300+ lbs of it!
I want to put up tomato salsa using my own recipes and be able to adjust the ph as needed with other acids, like fresh lime juice. So it would seem that I need to get these books…..
I am looking forward to branching out and trying a WHOLE MESS of new things!! <3
I’ll be doing lots of sun dried tomatoes, flavored oils, herbal pestos, grapefruit marmalade, whole blueberry jam and lots more!!
I’m going to can some chicken this summer. And try some new things that I have discovered possible on your site. Thank you for opening up a whole new adventure for me! So excited.
(Now I’m off to visit your other blog to find out about coffee with condensed milk- yum!)
Tomorrow I will be experimenting with a recipe that includes Meyer-lemon blossoms. I’m hoping the overtones are heavenly.
Either raspberry or blackberry jalapeño jelly!
looking forward to canning pickles and heirloom tomatoes from my garden!
I’m going to try whole raspberries and cherries. Yum!
I’m excited to can batches of summer fruits and veggies for my 6 month old daughter!
This season I really want to attempt more with tomatoes. I alway mean to but somehow end up focusing on other things, mostly fruit jams.
I am anxiously awaiting strawberry season so that I can branch out from my usual plain old strawberry jam (which will not be falling off the roster, it will just have some company) and try out the Strawberry Pinot Noir Preserves from Local Kitchen. I’m also looking forward to canning throughout the summer rather than just at the end.
I am looking forward to my salsa of course! I am intrigued about canning eggplant though! Very interesting!
I am looking forward to making something with Sour Cherries. Maybe Pie Filling 🙂
What a cool giveaway! I’m hoping to do strawberry jam (since I’m just a beginning canner), but my dad informs me that a batch of rhubarb is growing like crazy. So my new thing is to not only continue to can “normal” jams, but perhaps try something that includes the rhubarb!
I’m really hoping to can tomatoes and pasta sauces. I’ve already pickled asparagus and done enough rhubarb recipes to drive y one person nutty. 🙂 I love when you recommend canning books because I love flipping through recipes, seeing how everyone does them, and taking ideas from all the different sources to make something yummy!
Our growing season was wet, wet, wet last year, leaving us jars of tomato goodies that need to be cooked down before use. I long to put up a batch of tomatoes more red than pink.
I’m starting a garden this year and I’m excited to put up stuff from my own garden – likely salsa verde, pickles, and peppers!
I’m looking forward to canning Peach BBQ Sauce and trying out Strawberry Balsamic Jam. Can’t wait for summer to start!! 🙂
I am so different I think from many of you. I enjoy canning, but also do it because I need to, not just because I want to. I definetely get burned out by the end of summer and don’t go around all winter trying to find something else to can! 🙂
That said – my favorite thing to can is jams, especially berry jams. I grow my own raspberries and strawberries and pick blackberries and huckleberries wild each year. These books sound like they’d have some great reference information, which I’m always looking for.
I am SO looking forward to attempting a peach raspberry jam. This is my first year canning. I used to buy this jam from a farmers’ market stall every year. I’m excited to finally have the skills to make it myself!
I’m going to have a bumper crop of dandelions this year, and I’m thinking I’ll try dandelion jam 🙂
I cannot wait to start making pickles. I’ve mainly done jams and fruit syrups so I’m excited to branch out a little more.
Not very original, but important for day-to-day life, but more dill relish and more ketchup!
I’ve already got requests for salsa. Personally, I’m looking forward to anything and everything strawberry. Recently moved right down the street from a pick your own berry farm and I can’t wait to go check it out!
I am planning to make honey rose petal jam. I’ve had my eye on this book – and now a sequel!! Thanks for a great giveaway!
I’d love to make and can some fresh tomato jam (sweet and spicy ones!)
While making Local Kitchen’s Peach preserves with the Kraken rum comes to mind (every time I’m at the liqueur store, I eye the Kraken, wondering when I will break down and make the inevitable purchase just for the sake of preserves) and the shallot confit to which I never got around, I take the season as it comes. When something starts showing up–that’s when I start looking at recipes and dreaming.
Im REALLY looking forward to making ketchup and salsa and bbq sauce this year. It will be my first time canning any of those. You can say it has been on my cannig bucket list for a few years now. I have always done straight forward basic canning for many many years now and I am ready to take on some difficult tasks and learn more about trying my own ideas. These books sound like a MUST HAVE!!
I’ve canned loads of things including chicken…but the butternut squash soup sounds awesome…does either of his books say anything about other squashes..or pumpkins?…just to clear out my freezer of pumpkin hopefully…thanks..
I’ve started dumpstering in a big way, and so my canning will depend very much on what I happen to find that’s in good enough shape and in large enough quantity. I envision, however, canning tomatoes and green beans (garlicky and pickled? mmmm).
I want to try canning soups this year!
I am looking forward to canning everything that I get my hands on. But am hoping to be adventurous in making my own spaghetti and pizza sauces. I think that canning is a wonderful way of knowing what is in your foods and with a house FULL of boys, it is also away to put away when stuff is in season/cheap.
I have my eye on the recipe for pickled cherries in the June Bon Appetit. They are refrigerator pickles, but with some how-to knowledge on acidity testing, I would love to make them shelf-stable.
I’m looking forward to putting up as many tomatoes as my garden can give me. And now that the blackberry vines have started trying to take over the yard, I’m looking forward to making preserves and cordial.
I’m anxious for summer fruit so I can can Well Perserved’s Poached Pears, Honey Bourbon Cocktail Cherries and pickled everything!
I had no idea there was a Putting Up More!
Dh built me a big garden with wonderful raised beds. If I can save our apple trees (we bought a foreclosure) and manage to figure out what the weather is doing this spring (yeah right), then I hope to have huge amounts of food to preserve. Yay! I’ve canned for years and love getting a little creative. I just need to learn more of the science so I can. Sounds like this book is what I’m looking for!
Tomatoes. And tomato things.
I just learned to can last summer and I work on a farm… I’m excited for beet relish, tomatoes, pickled carrots, and loads of jam…. can’t wait!!!
I’m looking forward to canning a lot, but at the top of the list is peach cobbler preserves with vanilla! This book will be going on my interlibrary loan list tomorrow. I’m intrigued by that sweet onion jam pictured above.
I am looking forward to canning vegetable soup this summer. Or pizza sauce. I want to can something from our garden that we can really use next winter.
Looking forward to canning some rhubarb.
I plan on jellies and jams and tomatoes this year as it’s my first and anything else i can find yummy at the farmers market. This is a sweet giveaway and thank you for it. i would love to win but understand there can only be one. thanks for a great blog
I am so looking forward to trying my hand at tomato products. I would also LOVE to try canning chicken. Thanks for the giveaway!!
I’ve never canned before, but I really want to try diced tomatoes and some sliced peaches or jams.
I have never canned before but am planning on starting this year. I want to makes some pear preserves.
I really love sweet pickles. Would love to win these books, great giveaway!
since this is my first summer canning at all, EVERYTHING is my favourite. i’m having so much fun!
Canning in general is pretty new to me. This year I’ve already got pickled local asparagus under my belt, and if my cucumbers would ever sprout (its been a very cold spring here), I’m hoping to pickle them too!
its not coming into summer on my side of the world, we are heading into winter, so its all about apples for me! but am looking forward to making lots of berry jam in summer 😀
Any because I have not canned anything since about 91 and this year I plan on canning my hinnie off.
I’m thinking that I’ll try out all of my tomato and non-tomato catsup recipes. I’d really like to nail a tomato catsup that kids and adults will like.
I’ve never seen these books before. Thanks for bringing them to my attention.
I am looking forward to canning pickled onions and apple butter! Two of my favorite things! PLEASE pick me to learn from these books!!!
thanks bunches!!!
what incredible books these must be. i’ll be buying them if i don’t win them..lol. i can veggies, relishes, chutneys, soups, salsas, jams, whole fruit, you name it. I just made your chive blossom vinegar. love your work..and appreciate your sharing all of your knowledge.
Well since I have only canned jam in the past but have gotten totally in whole natural organics….and working on my garden I’m looking forward to putting up EVERYTHING!!! lol but I’m most looking forward to putting up homemade tomato sauce 😀
Hi there! Just recently found ur blog and am totally enjoying catching up on all ur posts. I’ve worked in kitchens extensively and am surprised how many chefs/cooks don’t feel comfortable with canning, etc. so I’m looking forward to experimenting this summer. Namely tomatoes. Always been intimidated to try, don’t know why, but I’m going to get some cases at the farmers market soon and go for it. Also would love to try peppers and eggplant this summer. It would be awesome to start my canning library by adding above mentioned to my arsenal. Thanx for ur genoerosity with giveaway!
I’m really looking forward to trying the spiced port and plum jam from the book Preserve It!
I’m excited to try the Rhubarb BBQ Sauce from Local Kitchen 🙂
I really hope to have enough home grown tomatoes to can this year. I also plan to make some sweet relish. I can’t decide which I’m most looking forward to! 🙂
This year I’m going to can something new for me. My new canning venture will be – Baba Ganoush, which is a Middle Eastern Eggplant salad/dip!