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.
Last year was my first year to can, so I’m looking forward to EVERYTHING! It was so great to open my own pureed tomatoes.
Just finished making Rhubarb and Apple Jam with Beer (Two Brother’s Country Ale).
Hopefully pickles of any kind. I’ve been too scared to actually put anything up! I know crazy – especially because of how much I like your blog. btw – my mom says thanks for introducing me to eat boutique – she loved here basket.
More of Vadalia Onion Relish….a Paula Dean recipe I got out of a magazine last summer. Deelish!
Oh tomatoes. Cannot wait.
Everything tomato! Also soup. Also peaches. Oh, so many things!
this is the summer i am going to fill my pantry shelves with seasonal goodness! (i think, i hope). i’ve only canned applesauce in the past. but THIS year, i’m hoping for some pickles (assorted), maybe some tomato things (if i have another bumper crop), and assorted jams and jellies!
Tomatoes. Tomatoes are at the top of my list for canning this year.
I’ll second Angela S, I can test pH, I can make calculations to determine how much food I have and how much acid I need to add to bring the pH where it needs to be. I’m glad someone is treating canning this way instead of trying to scare everyone. How did we ever eat anything before we had the government and its various entities to tell us how to do these things?? 😉
I am looking forward to pickled peaches!
For me, it’s a toss up between strawberry jam and pickled beets. Both are simple, but they are my summer favorites. I’d love to expand my canning repetoire!
It all depends on what’s exciting in the produce this year. Last year was so good for sour cherries, I’m hoping that this year has a decent season as well.
My current plan, however, is to rework the concord grape jelly I made from juice and somehow get it to gel. This might involve curse words. But I have another gallon of white grape juice leftover from Passover that I think will make herb jelly once I figure this solidifying thing out.
Those books look so useful, I’m making grabby hands with my mind.
I can’t wait to replenish my tomatoes! And pickles! And dilly beans! And really, really can’t wait to do applesauce. We are the last jars on all these things (many other items are long gone) and have you seen how expensive organic applesauce is? With two little ones we go through a tone of it and climbing through abandoned fields to get to old apple trees is sooooo worth it! (We are friends of the owner, not trespassers)
Thanks for an awesome giveaway,
Heather
I’m looking forward to strawberries coming in and making good old-fashioned strawberry jam
My favorite this year, and every year is salsa. I was just given a new recipe, so I can’t wait to try it. My other favorite is chicken. We raise our own chickens and it’s so nice to have canned chicken on the shelf in winter for quick soups and casseroles.
i’ve already made a batch of orange rhubarb butter using the recipe from you, i also added ginger, cayenne and cinnamon for some kick it was AWESOME, i’m making some again for sure!
I plan to can for my first ever time. I’m not even sure WHAT, yet. I’ll be going home to see my fam for a couple of weeks and have decided to save it as a “do together” activity for my mom and me. She can teach me her skills, and it’ll be a good time together.
Oh, thank goodness. The assumption that you’re a sick murderer if you can without using an unpleasant “tested recipe” is so utterly patronizing. I spent years working as a lab assistant. I can add grams of an acidifying agent or test the pH, as could anyone with some dexterity and common sense. I believe if cooking and canning were seen as “men’s work”, all cookbooks would look like this. Instead, there’s a presumption that you mustn’t let the bubble-headed housewife improvise, as she’ll kill everyone with botulism.
Pickled asparagus. And, like Charisse, I’m really looking forward to making a fresh batch of concord grape compote. Homemade Concorde grape jams and compotes are like a sunny childhood day in a jar. Add peanut butter and white bread and you have magic.
I have always been too nervous to can things in the past but I’m determined that this will be the year that I gather some cojones and make it happen. With that new found courage, I am looking forward to learning how to can tomatoes and make pickles.
Dilly Beans!!!
hi marisa! i think i am looking forward to pickling some things from my garden this year. i’ve done some canning, but mostly from orchard purchases. my garden is expanded this year…perhaps i will get some of my fun produce put away.
thanks for your wonderful blog!
samantha
Wow…it’s so hard to decide…But I really love fresh jam! We have a concord grape vine in our yard and it makes the best tasting jam! Such a treat year round!
Oh Wow, I have a giant list of canning books to buy and this one is near the top! I hope to make some wonderful chutney’s this year. I have only done tomato’s (thanks grandma!) and jellies so far. I need to step up my game!!
Corn Salsa. Yummy!
I’m looking forward to canning salsa this summer!
I’m am very much looking forward to pickled green tomatoes and triple berry jam. didn’t get to either last year, and now my skills are better, comparatively.
I am looking forward to making a beet relish this year. I have made hot sauce in the past and will be also doing another round of that as well.
I just can’t wait for the farmers markets to get “fat” with fresh produce.
These books sound EXACTLY like what I’ve been looking for (and apparently many others, too)! My canning to do list this year involves some Indian inspired pickles from the mighty Tigress.
I can’t wait to do tomatoes! We always use them all up, too.
i’ve never done pickled carrots and dilly beans looking forward to that. Beef stew and meat sauces in my pressure canner. (pressure canning was new last year) I’ve got a large garden planted and i can’t wait to harvest the blessings from it.
Renee
Pickles and spicy carrots are going to be filling my pantry soon!
I’m looking forward to making corn salsa again this year. It was a stand-out winner from last year, and I’m excited about making things again that have become familiar–rather than every recipe being new and a bit of a gamble.
I’m definitely looking forward to doing pickles! Although my all-time favorite thing to can is pickled jalapenos. YUM!
We recently started canning with a rhubarb/grapefruit compote as our first experiment which went AMAZINGLY well. With a large garden this year, we are most looking forward to pickling cukes and canning tomato anything as we are novices at all this!
These sound like great books! I’m looking forward to canning anything with tomatoes -last year was such a bad tomato year for me I barely had enough to eat, let alone can. I’m keeping me fingers crossed for this summer!
I am REALLY new to canning, so I just hope to get some basics canned. I’m still learning a lot about the process.
Hmm, that’s a toughie. I was gonna say rhubarb chutney, but now you’ve put asparagus pickles in my head. So let’s say both.
Jams, jams & more jams! Many a weddings, birthdays and other celebrations to provide for. Bring on the jams!
I am looking forward to making apricot jam … and peach preserves for my best friend’s wedding in August!!! What an amazing giveaway!!
My garden is 3x bigger than ever this year. I can’t wait to can enough tomatoes, sauce and salsa to last us for a year.
Last season, I canned alot of soups but this year I want to concentrate on individual offerings of veggies, sauces and meats.
Pickled carrots and jalapenos (escabeche) to eat with homemade vegetarian tacos. Actually, I don’t know if I can wait until summer to make it!
I can’t wait to can some ketchup. With a little guy running around I think this will become an essential staple in my house.
Most looking forward to canning fresh albacore tuna! Albacore comes through the waters of San Francisco around late spring early summer and I usually get a couple pounds to put up. I used to work at a seafood restaurant and they are kind enough to let me order it through their provider at wholesale. Super good!
I am hoping we get enough green beans and cukes in our garden this year to experiment with different flavors of all kinds of pickles!
Now if I could only get folks to give me back all the half pint jars….
Rhubarb jelly, jam and chutney this weekend along with some pickled asparagus. Canning season has really begun!
Low sugar blueberry cinnamon jam. I’d also like to learn how to make sugar-free strawberry freezer jam, so I can have the sweet as candy stuff I remember from my grandma’s house, without the guilt.
I’m looking forward to canning my own pumpkin this year! If it ever stops raining, and I can get the peppers and tomatoes planted, there will be salsa as well!
I am looking forward to pickling jalapenos. It was my greatest hit last year!
This is a boring answer, but I am most looking forward to raspberry jam. MMMmmmmm.