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
While walking by the Cookbook Stall at Reading Terminal Market about a week ago, I happened to spot Putting Up More
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
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
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!