It has been FAR too long since I’ve done one of these cookbook round-up posts. Amazing books have been stacking up all around my apartment (quite literally, there are piles nearly everywhere you look) and there are so many I want to share with you. So I’m going to get back into the business of featuring the best of the food-focused books that are crossing my threshold. Today’s post features four such books that came out in the last three or four months and would all make great additions to your culinary library.
This summer was a really good time for jar-focused cookbooks (including mine!). One such book is Shaina Olmanson’s first, called Desserts in Jars. You might know her from her blog, Food For My Family. Shaina did all the writing, recipe development, food styling and photography for this book. My hat is off to her and the beautiful, accessible book that she created.
Desserts in Jars features all manner of cakes, pies, custards, puddings, fruit desserts and frozen desserts. There’s also a section in the very back filled with mixes for giving. There are a number of people on my holiday list who will be receiving jars of her Spiced Hot Chocolate Mix in their gift baskets this year.
Many words of praise have been heaped on Nigel Slater’s Ripe since it was published (it’s been out since 2010 in the UK, but has only been available in the US since late spring). It deserves every ounce of adulation too. It is beautifully written and photographed. The recipes are creative and allow you the space to adapt and explore the featured main ingredients.
The recipes in Ripe are named things like “A sharp damson pickle for cold meats” and “A high-summer jam to serve warm.” How could you not want to make things with such romantic and descriptive handles? One dish that I’m hoping to make in the very near future is his “Apples and quince baked in cream.” Just saying the name makes me feeling like I’ve been transported to a small village in the English countryside.
Written by the founder of Brooklyn-based Anarchy in Jam, Laena McCarthy’s Jam On is a really masterful preserving book because it doesn’t just contain a series of recipes. Laena has included the how and why of jams that she has learned throughout her career as a professionals fruit preserver. For instance, there’s a chart that breaks down which fruits are high in pectin, which have moderate amounts and which are quite low in pectin. That’s the kind of knowledge that makes it possible for cookbook users to explore fruit and put together their own jams, butters and marmalades.
Jam On has sections devoted to jams and jellies; preserves, marmalades and chutneys; sugar-free jams and fruit butters (I get lots of questions about sugar-free canning, those of you interested in this topic should definitely check out this book!); pickled fruits, syrups and shrubs; and pairings. I’m most enamored of the last two sections, as they have given me so many great ideas.
Written by Chef Paul Virant of Chicago’s Vie and co-authored by Kate Leahy, The Preservation Kitchen is an incredible book for canners who want to expand their preservation habit beyond their traditional jams and pickles. One of the best things about this book is that it takes a very scientific approach to the formatting of the recipes, listing the ingredients in volume, ounces, grams and percentages. This makes it easier to scale the recipes up or down, which is so useful when you need to work with the produce you have and not an exact, recipe-prescribed amount.
Particular gems in this book include chapters on Bittersweet Preserves (this includes aigre-doux and mostardas – both incredible with cheeses) and Pressure Canning. The pressure canning section is only three recipes deep, but all are winners, particularly the garlic conserva (detailed here by Hank Shaw) which allows you to have shelf stable, oil-packed, tender garlic.
My favorite canning recipe comes from my mom. She makes a salmon berry jelly that is to die for. She uses cran raspberry juice to give it flavor!
I immediately ordered Desserts in Jars – thanks!
I’ve been lusting over a copper canning pot.
My favorite recipe comes from my mamaw – a very simple apple butter that can’t be beat. It’s here: http://whataboutthesmiths.wordpress.com/recipes/slow-cooker-apple-butter/
I’m a fan of the strawberry preserves in the Southern Living Cookbook.
There’s a pickled strawberry jam recipe that a friend found (it’s strawberry jam with balsamic vinegar and spices). I believe she got it from the New York Times. A couple of other friends and I have made it and this year when I had a glut of grapes I made a pickled grape jam. So good! Between that and shrubs and pickles I think I’m becoming that girl who puts vinegar in everything.
Pear Butter–from a recipe found on the internet that includes white wine and cognac. Grapefruit Cranberry Jam–found on the internet but, I changed it a bit, (It started life as a marmalade at the cooking light website [Cooking Light, Jan/Feb 1995] but my Hun Bun doesn’t like the peels)
My favourite so far is a tie between your black raspberry jam (made this year, LOVE) and my own spaghetti sauce I made a few years ago when I had a huge tomato patch and mixed amish paste tomotoes with pineapple tomatoes and spices and it made the most incredible sauce – tomato-ey but sweet but herbal and garlicy. I finished off the last jar this past spring and lament that I have no tomatoes this year. Next year, though… oh yes, they will be mine!
Since I just started canning last year, I haven’t acquired many books on the subject other than Ball Blue Book. I also use the website, Pick Your Own. I hope to delve through your blog too, and preserve something! Thanks for the generous giveaway! Blessings from Bama!
I too started canning last year and was quite disappointed with the Ball Blue Book. Pick Your Own is a great resource as well, but I have found that Marisa’s blog and her Food in Jars book have been my go to. Totally worth the investment. Happy Canning!
My favourite canning recipe is for rose petal jelly, from the blog Wood Ridge Homestead in the Shenandoah Valley – it’s a beautiful combination of spectacular colour and sweet flavour. And sour cherry jam ranks a huge second – I just use the recipe from the Bernardin pectin insert.
Tough question. My absolute favorite is pickled beats from the Ball book of canning.
I love beautiful cookbooks
There is no single favorite source! Although perhaps the Ball Blue Book has the largest number of “go-to” recipes that we use. Certainly the most practical ones, like canning pintos and other dried beans.
Here and Chickens in the Road would be among my favorite places to look for interesting canning/preserving recipes: http://chickensintheroad.com/farm-bell-recipes/category/preserving/
And this book would certainly be a nice addition to the library!
I guess my favorite recipe is one my mom made-up. She has a family recipe for fresh cranberry apple relish that we make at Thanksgiving. Because of a family members food allergies to raw apples, she started cooking the relish which made it more like apple sauce. One year she had lots of left overs and thought it would make really good jam and it does!
i totally feel for your tomato jam and haven’t looked back since.
I have preserved quite a few jars of pickled jalapenos, recipe from http://www.sallypasleyvargas.com/2011/09/some-like-it-hot-pickled-jalapenos.html. And I also love the roasted tomato and red pepper sauce that I spotted on a full measure of happiness. And I must also add I’ve used your refrigerator pickles tons, too. So hard to pick just one favorite.
I made sour cherry jam this – only one jar, but it’s my favourite – I used your recipe. I love it on toast with goats cheese. Now I know that I need to buy far more sour cherries next year.
I’m a pickle gal, so my favorite go-to are kosher dills. However, I tried a new jam recipe this year, and it blew me away. Tomato jam. Specifically, the one from Food in Jars. Amazing!
I love the membrillo recipe from the Big Sur Bakery cookbook…and am greedily eying my new neighbor’s quince tree!
My favorite can be found on a very old tattered recipe card from my grandmother: Figgy Chocolate Jam….yummy!
Strawberry vanilla jam from Food in Jars! Our niece came this summer and that was one of the many fun things we made together!
My favorite is a David Lebovitz recipe for cherry jam because it is the first recipe that got me preserving. It’s a gorgeous blog post and I had 20 lbs of cherries from an overly enthusiastic farm visit. Now I’m hooked and wishing I’d made more of your lime nectarine jam earlier this summer.
OH The Preservation Kitchen is simply heavenly!! In all honesty this will make book number 3 on my Christmas list… with Jam On and Food in Jars being the top two. My family just shakes their heads…. All time favorite preservation recipe??? My grandma’s recipe for Limed pickles! I’ve been making them since the summer of 1991 when I was aching for the familiar because I knew my husband would be leaving exactly 2 weeks after our 1st anniversary for a year in Korea. It was my first attempt into preserving and I’ve never looked back since! Were there seasons where nothing was put up? technically yes (aside from spice mixes and vanilla) but after putting up 7 quarts of applesauce the canning bug has bit me again! 🙂
I canned crockpot apple butter this year, and just love it. I used brown sugar and white sugar as well as a vanilla bean!
This looks great! My source is my mom 🙂 She was always busy preserving something.
This year I made a fantastic Apple Rhubarb chutney from the Big Ball Book.. It was simple & plain forward and man is it good…
Oh my goodness, I would love to win this book… and Im off to see the recipe Hank Shaw posted.. Oh Lord have mercy… I am absolutely, positively making that garlic, quite possibly this week… after I finish my bushel & 1/2 of cherry tomatoes. 😉
Strawberry vanilla jam from your book! Your book is fantastic ..more please 🙂
So my favorite new recipe – seriously, not pandering! – is your Tomato Jam recipe from your new Food In Jars book. I have always wanted to make one and did this about 3 weeks ago. It’s wonderful savory taste has me using it in so many places. I plan on making more in tiny jars for gift giving (along with other tiny jar samples)! Thanks, Marisa, for more inspiration!
Aside from the internet, my favourite preserving recipe comesfrom Canning for a New Generation. This year, I really liked the Strawberry and Lemon Preserves.
I love italian plum jam w/ balsamic. Delicious!
This book is ony amazon wish list right now! Would love to have it. I’ve been looking for a small jam pot, and also a small cast iron skillet.
I love your pear vanilla jam!!!
Extra good sweet pickles recipe from a ridiculously old ball canning blue book. Its pages are colored and tattered and there is some extreme wear on the binding. yet it never fails to provide some wonderful recipes. Its been passed down and I think is possibly from the 50s, and I’m glad its around.
I get pickle and relish recipes from everywhere, so it’s hard to pick a favorite! And I usually adapt them over the years. I do love the tomato jam which you posted, though of course I’ve varied it somewhat.
Sometimes I print recipes online and I can’t recall their source. My current favorite falls into this category and is a spiced apple preserves. Perfect on toasted brie sandwiches. It might even be your recipe that I obtained through the Mrs. Wages site?
Growing up, we had rows of blackcurrant bushes at the bottom of our yard. My mom would spend days in the kitchen each summer boiling down the tiny currants into cordials, cheesecake topping, ice-cream, and best of all, blackcurrant jam. There is nothing that reminds me more of home. It’s a great recipe!
One of my favorites is the Pear Vanilla Jam found on this blog. It’s amazing!
My favorite is an onion jam (more like a jelly) from the Complete Book of Canning.
My preservation cookbooks are slim to none. I’ve only got one by Ball but I love their apple butter recipe. Fantastic on pancakes!
I started canning three years ago after attending one of your workshops and I’ve used this site’s recipe index to guide me. So, my favorite preserve from this summer would be pickled green tomatoes from Food in Jars – I’ve been putting them on grilled cheese sandwiches all month.
My favorite recipe is the peach pepper salsa from the Ball cookbook. Served over ricotta on a cracker or toasted baguette- yum! A really good hors d’oeuvre.
I have really enjoyed my sweet pickle relish this year. It just seemed to turn out better than ever before!!!
These look amazing! My fave recipe is my grandmother’s wild blackberry jam…we would go pick the berries from these insanely towering brambles out in the woods, getting all scratched up in the process, all the while looking out for the copperheads that like to hang out underneath all the undergrowth, and then go back and make as much jam and jelly as we could. And then cobblers!
Yummmmmmmmm 🙂
Thanks for your blog!
My favorite preserve recipe is probably the Victorian barbecue sauce recipe from the Ball book. I could eat that stuff on anything (and often do.)
The source? My mother’s recipe box 🙂
She’s been making a savory chili sauce for as long as I can remember, and my job as a kid was to stir it, every 15 minutes, while it was cooking down. I now make it myself, and it’s the one preserve I won’t do without. It’s fantastic on scrambled eggs, sausages, potatoes… pretty much everything. Dad even eats it with grilled cheese!
My favorite preserve recipe would probably just be to make fridge pickles of any kind. They remain so crispy and you can just keep jars in the fridge of whatever is in season!
My current favorite jam is actually the Apple-Cranberry Jam from the Food In Jars cookbook – my husband and I are making a second batch this very morning!
My new favorite is Kiwi Jam from the Ball Book but my old stand by Jalapeno Jelly is also from the same book and both these recipes have helped launch my new obsession; growing and trying new kinds of jam and jelly recipes made with Hot Peppers and/or Kiwi, yum.
My current favorite canning recipe is for pickled jalapenos. We came into a ton of them this summer (I mean a ton) and I found a recipe for pickled jalapenos on Serious Eats. They are absolutely amazing and so very simple to make.
Great post – I love cookbook reviews! I find them so helpful when looking for new ones. I’m still new to canning, so my favorite sources for recipes are Canning for a New Generation and your blog.
I’ve been wanting the Staub chicken roaster for many, many years. It’s shaped like a chicken, and so adorable. Sadly, I don’t see it in stores anymore so if anyone has one that they would like to get rid of, please let me know.
As I’m still relatively new to canning (second year), my favorite as of now is still your Honey Lemon Apple Jam. Never before had I thought of making apples into jam. My mother always made applesauce, and I guess I just thought that’s all you could do with apples. Boy, was I wrong!