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.
Some of my favorite preserve recipes have come from you. I also love your refrigerator pickles!
My mother in law has a recipe that her mom used to make. Other than that, our recipes come from Ball or you!
I treasure the recipes from my Grandmother….I especially love her beet jell recipe.
Pretty much all of my favorite preserving recipes/methods come from “Putting Food By.” It is my old standard, and continuing favorite. 🙂
What a great giveaway!
One of my favorite recipes is a peach butter recipe that was passed to me by my hubby’s grandmother. It has been in the family for generations.
I am currently on a quest to put my kitchen back together. After a devastating tornado in our community this past spring…our home was a total loss. Cookbooks, cookware…canning supplies…you don’t realize how much you use all of that stuff…and rely on it until you don’t have it.
My favorite source wouldhave to be the Ball books. I have their giude and bigger book. Their guide to preserving was my first canning cookbook so it’ll always hold a special place in my library! I also enjoy our local extension service website. It’s very informative and has creative recipes and tips.
I love your pickled cucumber recipe! Just made a third batch in as many weeks! 🙂
either lottie + doof apple jellies or another year without groceries’ apple peel jelly. Both are very fun, and very seasonal right now.
Cookwear dreams: A large saute pan for all of our delicious one pan meals.
Cookbook standard: For preserving all kinds of things and other homesteady tips I’m in love with “Stocking Up”. This book, the first edition of which my mom got for her wedding, has recipes for preserves AND how to pick fruit, build a root cellar, butcher meat, make cheese, winnow wheat… basically this is the book I want with me if I am ever stranded on an island. I read my cookbooks like novels and would love another!!
I’m on the lookout for a kitchen cleaning fairy!!!! (or living room or bathroom for that matter!)….if you see one, send her my way! That counts as cookware, right? He/she would make sure that all of my cookware stays spotless!
I’m new to your site and love it. I love to preserve food by canning. My favorite preserve is Gingered Pineapple from the book Perfect Preserves by M. Dalton King.
I already have my favorite cooking vessel, a black cast iron fry pan. Love it!
My favorite recipe is your peach jam, but I add bourbon!
My favorite (and the recipe I’ve gotten the most requests and compliments on) is Amy’s Tomato Jam from your blog/book.
My favorite hands down is dilly beans (using your recipe)- though i’m looking forward to trying some new things during pear season
Well- it’s you! I love your recipes- and most especially you pear cardomom jam. Thanks : )
So many to choose from! Our standby is the Quick Strawberry Jam from Put ’em up!
The “source” of my favourite preserves recipe is definitely my Aunt Linda, who died suddenly and too young a few years ago. She always made a “Christmas Jam” which, though quite sweet, was amazing – a combination of strawberries and cranberries.
I also love the Tomato Jam recipe from this site, since it introduced me to the very notion of tomato jam, and I have made many a delicious thing from Liana Krissoff’s book “Canning for a New Generation”.
fresh blackberry jam from my mom love this blog
My favorite jam is my families recipe for Blackcap & Red Currant! Another favorite is my grandmother’s recipe for Icicle Pickles. Kudos also to your Tomato jam recipe which I made this summer with my booming cherry tomato crop and that is fabulous, a real treat and I plan on using it this Christmas in place of store bought tomato relish for my baked brie!
My favorite is a strawberry jam which I got from James Beard’s American Cookery.
I made your blueberry jam this summer. My husband used it on pancakes, toast and ice cream, it was a big hit.
My favorite recipe, at the moment, is a tomato jam recipe I found in my grandmother’s hand written papers.
I’ve been enjoying the orange rhubarb butter this week. The jar is going fast!
I get a lot of my recipes from your site! Thank you so muc
your no pectin low sugar peaches
My favorite preserve recipe is my own cherry berry spoon fruit, based on a technique I gleaned from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving
Raspberry preserves yum! Recipe found at http://girlsguidetobutter.com/2010/07/raspberry-preserves/
I am new to jam making. So far my favorite is for hot pepper jam that came from the Ball web site.
The only thing I had canned before I got your book was my mother’s green tomato relish, which I love. Recently, I’ve canned your cantaloupe jam and peach salsa, which are both delicious!
The first jam I ever made was Kumquat Marmelade from this blog Food in Jars. It’s the easiest jam to make, so great for beginners, and tasty too
I don’t have one source. This blog, of course, is where I am getting ideas, but I have yet to actually start preserving. That’s gonna take buying some equipment which will happen in the near future.
There are my grandmother’s recipes for plum preserves and strawberry jam which I will be trying.
Hello Marisa,
I just love your blog and every time the mail comes into my account “food in jars has written something” a big smile crosses my face.
Well, what have i been searching for? A cake stand. Probably boring for you, but that was one of the items I never owned. The funny thing is, I didn’t find one, but it found ME! One of my friends gave it to me as a birthday present, although she didn’t know, i am looking for one!
Please let me be the winner, maybe this great book finds me too 😉
Sooooo warm greetings from Germany,B.
Lemon Curd, I think from Sunset Magazine. I made it during one of my first canning classes I took a few years ago and fell in love with it, as has anyone else who’s tried it.
your peach jam.
Love the radish relish I made as a joke for my sister in law. Tried it and now I don’t want to give it her.
My Romanian grandmother has a special recipe for alcohol infused cherry. The syrup it creates is out of this world.
I love the Peach Bourbon Jam that appeared in Serious Eats’ Preserved column. I can never make enough to satisfy demand for it!
This summer had 2 big winners. The first was salsa verde from Canning for a New Generation, because it involves no chopping. I managed to put up 40lbs of tomatillos during naps! The other was your tomato jam, which we’ve discovered is wonderful with smoked cheddar…
My favorite is an “accident”–plum-grape! I had half enough each of plum and grape puree for a batch of jam, mixed the two together, and there you have it!
Your blueberry butter, via Simple Bites, is my favorite preserve this year! Opened my eyes to a work of added-pectin-free deliciousness where the fruit flavor shines!
My favorite is one I made up, with my aunt’s suggestions for using apple juice concentrate and the ingredients I had on hand (namely, rosehips and oranges). It was a very tasty marmalade!
Laena McCarthy’s “Jam On” is actually the source of my latest obsession: figalicious jam! I can’t stop buying gorgeous organic figs from my co-op and making “just one more batch.” I also made the Sungold tomato jam from that book with the last of my summer’s crop & it’s pretty darn delicious!
My favorite go to jam is your tomato jam with a little extra heat. Love it!
I’m currently loving the Pear & Cinnamon jam from your site, and the Caramelized Pear & Vanilla jam from Local Kitchen.
My recent favorite is your orange rhubarb butter.
Since I just started canning this summer, I always use the blue ball book. I’m still learning, and get too nervous to follow any other directions.
I use a hot pepper jelly recipe I found on the internet and altered it to my liking. I am just getting into canning and am loving it.
My favorite preserve recipe is my method for Beautyberry Jelly – not only is it a lovely preserve made from fruit of a native plant, but I’ve taken the same steeping method it starts with and made vanilla lemongrass, bignay, and plan to make lemon balm jelly later this winter!
oh please oh please oh please share your beautyberry jelly recipe! We have acres of them and i desperately want to make something hot pink and awesome from them!!
I’m still very new to canning, so I haven’t tried a lot of recipes, but so far my favorite thing I’ve made has been your pickled beets. I cracked open a jar a couple weeks ago to brighten up a salad and they were gone within two days.
Ashley English has a recipe for spiced peaches in Canning and Preserving that is probably my most requested preserve.