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.
I always like to try a few new things every year, but I am most looking forward to canning tomatoes this year as I ran out way too early!
We planted pickling cucumbers this weekend, and I can’t wait to try making my first jar of pickles. I love really dill pickles, so I’ll probably go with a batch of those.
This year I’m making more of my Nuclear Waste salsa, and would like to find a recipe for jam using honey instead of sugar. I’m also going to try putting up a batch or two of homemade pasta sauce.
So many, so many… I do look forward to more pickled green tomatoes. Last year was my first year of canning, I plan on making a few things, but those pickled green tomatoes… YUMMMM!!! I’ll probably try it with the cherry green tomatoes as well.
I have never canned peaches and I’m going to try this summer!
I’m excited to put up tomatoes!!!!!
I can’t wait to pickle some pearl onions!
I want to venture into pressure canning this summer. I’d also like to try some crazy pickles like okra or beets.
I have just started getting back into canning. I did some 20 years ago, but never repeated it. We now live on 6 acres with chickens, donkeys and goats and I want to produce more of our own food. So I am learning to can. I can’t wait to can my very own tomatoes for our winter use!
Last year, I made the Roasted Tomato Sauce from “Saving the Seasons” and it was soo good. So I am definitely looking forward to that one again. Plus, it was so easy to pop open a jar on my late nights home from work when I was too lazy to cook.
This year I’m anxious to try out some new recipes. For my birthday, I got “Put ‘Em Up!” and “Canning for a New Generation” and have like fifty recipes bookmarked to do this season. So exciting! 🙂
MORE pickled beets! I just can’t get enough of them!
Pickles, pickles and more pickles. Any and all.
I am looking forward to canning salsa this summer.
This is the first summer that I’ll be devoting to preserving, and I can’t wait. I’ve gone rhubarb crazy so far – rhubarb hibiscus preserves from The Hip Girls Guide to Homemaking, the barbecue sauce from Local Kitchen, strawberry rhubarb sauce with rose wine, spiced orange rhubarb butter, rhubarb syrup, rhubarb curd (for the freezer), and rhubarb schnapps. I even made a chart of each fruit and veg that I want to preserve and the different ideas I have for each – it’s a lot! I ended up with the most ideas for pickles and plums (including pickled plums). But what I’m really looking forward to are marinated peppers (hot and sweet).
I want to make rhubarb orange jam again (intended to last year but didn’t get around to it), and definitely more strawberry-kiwi and strawberry-raspberry which are big hits in my family. More pickles this year for sure. I hope to get baby cippoline onions again (not so many available last summer) and plenty of cukes for dh. I’d like to try some of the chutney recipes I’ve had on my to do list, and also look forward to a quiet moment to flip through the canning books I got for Christmas for new things to try.
we have a sour cherry tree at our community garden that no one else seems interested in–every year i make freezer jam with its fruits, but this year i am hoping to preserve them in a couple of different ways.
Today I’m making strawberry kiwi freezer jam and that starts my canning season. One thing I’ve not made in years is a three fruit marmalade so that’s on the calendar.
These look like wonderful books, will search for them next time I’m at a bookstore and thanks!
Acid testing? My food nerd heart is skipping a beat on reading that!
I am very much looking forward to canning blueberry syrup!
I will be starting simply, probably either pickles or strawberry jam.
I’m waiting for the local Oregon tuna and salmon to come in this summer.
I’m most looking forward to making fermented tomato sauce (pg84) from Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning. Thanks for offering these books!
I’m most excited to try canning some onion jam. It’s already too hot where I am and I’m fantasizing about eating some onion jam on a warm scone on a cool morning…mmm…
I can’t wait to make bread and butter pickles – those are the best! Also, pickled peaches and peach and lavender jam are both on my list.
I would love to get a copy of those books… soup seems like one of the most practical things to can, but I’ve been afraid to so far.
Salsa! I already finished everything I made last summer and I am dying to have more.
I always look forward to making jam in the summer with all the local berries. Thanks for the giveaway.
With a new CSA starting near me that offers organic berries I am excited to get my hands on some and make jam!
The one thing that I am looking forward to this year is your garlic dill pickles. It will be my first time ever making pickles! Thanks for the give away!!
Oooooh – too many things to count. This is only my second year of preserving and there are so many things I want to try – marmalade, chutney, more pickles, butters…just excited to start at the farmer’s market every week and see where that takes me.
I’m looking forward to canning tomatoes and making garlic jelly and tomato jelly.
I’m going to try canning for the first time this year. I remember the tomatoes my Mother used to can and have wanted to try it for years. So I’m growing tomatoes and if I don’t have enough I will supplement from the local farmers market.
I’m pretty new to canning, and I’ve made some basic jam recipes and I’m excited to branch out a bit and try things like onion and tomato jams. P.S. I love your blog, it inspired me to start canning!
These books look SO interesting! And I can’t wait for summer canning–I want to do some jardinere pickles, some pickled red onions, and lots of things with berries! Maybe some salsas too. 🙂
Oh to pick one is almost impossible. It’s getting exciting seeing the farmers markets opening once again. I’m hoping with these new books I will learn how to can Bacon Jam. But today I think I’ll make Lemon-Ginger Marmalade.
I am most excited to put up syrups and whole fruit this year.
I’m SOOO looking forward to canning tomatoes this year!!! Doesn’t sound to spectacular, I know…but after losing my entire tomato crop to blight last year, I’m excited ’bout tomatoes!!!
I am most looking forward to canning loads more plum jam this summer and fall because I am a plum freak and didn’t make nearly enough last year, and everyone I gave some to wants more as well! Also, canning tomatoes for the first time – I planted tomatoes this year from those upside down buckets you hang, so the fires of my tomato gluttony will be well-stoked. 🙂 thank for the contest entry!
Pickles! I am looking forward to making pickles for the first time.
This year I am looking forward to starting my first forays into canning, including a peach and rum jam and tomato sauce!
My canning season will start in a few weeks…can’t wait.
Would love to win to get more recipes to try.
I just canned my very first things (radishes and ramps!). I can’t wait to make hot jellies from my jalapeno plants!
Meyer lemons, cherries and tomato sauce!
Oooh, Marisa, these really do sound fabulous. And you know I am ALL over the pH testing; I give him major props for going there.
I think the thing I am most excited about this year is cherries; we lost all local cherries last year to an early frost, so it’s been too long. One more month!
I just pressure-canned my first soup last week, and I’m looking forward to more of that. Also, if I can ever get my hands on some sour cherries, I’ll make enough boozy cherries to last at least a year!
Can’t wait to can tomatoes, salsa, spaghetti sauce… 🙂
I look forward to canning some fruit conserves for the winter. Whether or not they LAST until then will be a different issue 😉
PICKLED WATERMELON RIND!
I’m ready to tackle tomatoes. Tomato sauce, whole peeled tomatoes, and ketchup!
I’m really looking forward to making more peach preserves, trying the nectarine preserves again (but with a little less sugar so the fruit pieces don’t get all chewy like last time), more peach & lavender butter, mango-peach salsa, and apricot preserves too. I can’t wait to pick all of the aforementioned fruits as well!