Many times over the years, I’ve been asked the question, “What is your favorite thing to preserve?” Typically I hedge a little, saying something about my allegiance to seasonality or simply that there are too many delicious things in the world to preserve. However, when absolutely pressed, I’ll finally admit that there are a few jams and spreads I love best of all.
Sour cherry jam, featuring big hunks of fruit suspended in a ruby syrup. Thick, sticky tomato jam for spreading on toasted cheese sandwiches or dolloping on roasted sweet potatoes. And a long-cooked onion spread, gently caramelized and tangy with vinegar or beer.
When Maggie Battista from Eat Boutique came to me and suggested that we team up on a box, I knew immediately that I wanted it to include some of my favorites. And so we constructed a box that includes We Love Jam Tart Cherry Jam, Blue Chair Fruit Early Girl Tomato Jam, Wozz Triple Ale Onion Spread, and a signed copy of my book. And at $58 for all those goodies, it’s something of a deal for the preserves lover in your life.
Thanks to Eat Boutique, I also have one of these Preserves Collection boxes to give away to a lucky Food in Jars reader. Here’s how to enter.
- Leave a comment on this post and share your favorite preserve. Be it jam, chutney, pickle, or spread, tell me about your very favorite thing to preserve.
- Comments will close at 11:59 pm east coast time on Saturday, November 2, 2013. Winners will be chosen at random (using random.org) and will be posted on Sunday, November 3, 2013.
- Giveaway is open to US residents.
- One comment per person, please. Entries must be left on the blog, I cannot accept submissions via email.
I like making different kinds of relish. Right now I’m waiting for my habanero/apple relish to mature.
Honestly, I love making pickled beets, mainly so I have left over brine so I can make pickled eggs!
I’ve been canning since 1968. As a new bride I made my grandmothers apricot-pineapple jam.It’s been a 45 year love affair. This year I tried some new recipes. I made carrot cake jam which was a huge success at a recent farm tour as well as my pear relish. But my new favorite is tomato jam.
My new favorite us your vanilla pear jam, I never would have thought of putting the two together but, delicious!
So far, jam has been my favorite thing to make, and my most favorite is apricot (followed closely by raspberry or plum). But, this year I finally took more of a plunge and did salsa, pickles, diced tomatoes, and applesauce. I have to say, your roasted corn salsa has quickly become a new favorite! 🙂
I love making salsa! I enjoy in the cold winter months bringing out a jar of salsa that I had canned over the summer with fresh tomatoes. Yum!
I could not believe how good Concord grape jelly was the first time I made it. Now I doctor it up with Chai tea and ginger, and it’s extra delicious.
I absolutely love Jam – All types – Strawberry, Mint, Etc. I love preserving Apricots and making jam!! Goes so well with brie.
As I continue to expand my preserving horizons my favorite continues to change! This year I tried jams with low sugar which ended up being more of a fruit spread-yum! So it would have to be the raspberry, strawberry and blackberry jam I made! I can hardly wait for next season.
Spiced peach butter because, other than tomatoes, it’s the only thing I’ve preserved (so far)!!
Marmalade! Any type of citrus marmalade. Also, pineapple jam.
Dilly Beans!
Cherry jam! Am still trying to figure out how to combine grapefruit with cherry……
I love love love pickled okra. The spicier the better.
Peach Jam! Eating and making it!
Fig pickles
though I love me any kind of pickle, in terms of jams/ preserves, I am hard pressed: wild blueberry jam: blueberry pie in a spoon. or hot/ sweet pepper jam. oh yes. (and I can just eat a spiced apple butter down to nothing pretty quickly too).
orange marmalade! mmmm!
Blackberry jam!
Peach butter!
I just did my very first batch of canning. I made your strawberry vanilla jam and it was a success! I never realized I could can!
I love trying new things, but my all time favorite is still spiced peach jam. (I will be making some of your mull spiced cider with the Kalamazoo College sustainability house students along with some apple sauce this weekend) Spread the joy of canning to the next generation!
Blueberry jam! It goes on so many different things and there is not a ton of prep work involved.
I really love the cranberry pear jam I made from your recipe. A new favorite!
My favorite this year has been a Lenin honey jelly that I made with cherry blossom honey.
Apple butter and hot damn apples!
So far, my favorite thing is your spiced peach butter. First of all, it’s easy to make. And second, I have gotten better response from the people who’ve tasted it – amazement at how peachy it is – than anything else I’ve preserved so far.
Bread and Butter Pickles!! I love all cucumber pickles, but the Bread and Butters are my favorites.
My favorite thing to preserve is Peach-Vidalia Onion relish…soooo good!!
Pear Butter!….this is my first year of canning it, and I’m soooo in love. 🙂
I just started preserving. My good friend gave me lots of treats this year. My favorite was the bread and butter pickles. She promised to pickle with me.
My favorite item to can is pickled beets. All of my children love them. Our secret ingredient was a practical joke played on my dad. Now we would never think about skipping it.
my favorite will always be strawberry jam. though the people I can for are most devoted to tomato jam.
I have been making various jams & butters this year, but your tomato jam recipe has me totally hooked! I put it on everything that even remotely sounds like it would work (& it usually does!) Thank you!
I love anything pickled….especially onions
I love meyer lemon marmalade the best… the smells of it being made, the eating, and the beauty on the shelf.
My very favorite preserve has to be black currant jam. Such deep flavor!
I love to make strawberry jam with strawberries I’ve picked.
Raspberry jam with a hint of cognac – the best taste in the world!
I LOVE apricot preserves. Yum!
Jalapeno Pepper Jam!
Favorite thing to preserve: Lime pickles! My great grandma’s recipe….
It is hard to decide. I love carmelized onion jam for savory. My favorite sweet is blueberry lemonade jam. I’m still working on finding a pickle I like that isn’t too sour.
I LOVE pickled anything!
My favorite thing is raspberry or blackberry preserves. I remember as a kid taking hikes with my auntie, coming home and cooking it up. The smell was just incredible. I learned to can from her and my grama ands still love it. The smell brings back the best childhood memories ever! Congrats to whoever win!
I made dilly beans for the first time this year and it’s got to be one of my favorite things so far…but I do love peach jam, too!
Apricot preserves are my absolute favorite. Thanks for the great giveaway!
My favorite thing is raspberry jam. 4 yrs ago when I got into making jam, I used Alice Water’s raspberry jam recipe from Chez Panisse Fruit. It turned out so well my MIL and Aunt were both very impressed. My Aunt ate a whole jar in a day! Every year I make a few extra jars of raspberry jam for my MIL and Aunt to enjoy.
It’s gotta be apricot preserves – reminds me of my grandma and there is something about them.
It’s a tie between loose fig jam and sour cherry jam! I love making citrus marmalade (organs, myer lemons, kumquats) in January in a cozy kitchen on a quiet, snowy day.
Bread and butter pickles. I just started canning this year and love the process!
MANGOOO!!!! soooo good! sooo sweet!
two favorite preserves: spicy tomato-apple chutney and tomato marmalade. Other nice things, but these are probably the favorite. Oh wait! Pickled beets with garlic and cumin…..so hard to choose…
Apple butter- plain and simple.
My favorite thing to preserve is pear preserve made with hard sand pears, sliced paper thin and cooked until the syrup is thick and dark. The taste is similar to a candied apple, and the bit of tooth from the sand pear offers just the bite of texture I love.
Classic Apple Butter!
My favorite preserve would have to be tomato jam. It’s so versatile and fun to introduce to people that have never tried it and I could eat it standalone. I’m currently just getting into the jarring world and this kit would help me on my way greatly. I need to get a new oven before I get started so all I’ve made so far is apple pumpkin butter which, of course, was unsealed.
I love to make pumpkin butter. I freeze it, as it isn’t safe to can in a water bath. It’s yummy on biscuits, or just about any type of bread.
It’s a toss up with Raspberry Jalapeno pepper jelly and bread and butter pickles
My favorite, so far is hot Jalapenos picked in Olive oil and vingar with spices. Oh so good from Sandi Smith youtube receipe. Something new that I tried this year.
Jam from the black raspberries growing in our backyard.
Definitely Apple butter. Or maybe garlic dill pickles. So hard to decide!
I love your plum anise jam. I think that is my all time fave. My husband loves the cowboy candy I make. Thank you for you inspiration.
Hmmm, this year it is ginger-rhubarb jam. Tart and hot. But my apricot lavender preserves are sooo good, too!
Strawberry preserves, freshly picked!
For me, it’s strawberry jam. No contest.
My new favorite is your tomato jam! my second favorite is blackberry preserves.
We love mango chutney, can barely keep it on the shelves.
My favorite thing to make is apple butter. We don’t actually go through that much of it–I have jars of apple butter from 1984 in the cellar that I really need to carry up and dump instead of filling new jars, but people keep giving me their old jars so I don’t go down and fight the snakes for the 1984 apple butter. I just enjoy getting together with the (other) old women in the family and spending the day telling stories, pushing that apple butter around, and reinforcing those old blood ties that bind. We made apple butter again this year. I passed out the apples a couple weeks ago (as we’re the only ones who still have apple trees), everyone took a bushel or three, or four, brought their buckets full of applesauce by daybreak. But, when it came time to take it off the fire, I see (once again) that most everyone has only brought 3 or 6 or 12 jars to take home for themselves. So (once again), I’m left with the bear’s share of apple butter–66 quarts this year. I’ll give quite a few away, but I’ll still have more than we can eat this year. I guess I’m just destined to have an ‘every year’ collection of vintage apple butter to remind me of the warm, wonderful fall days spent with the (other) old women of my heart and family. Everyone should be so lucky.
I love Mango one!!!!!! My favorite!
I love canning applesauce! I’m a newbie, and that’s been my most successful venture so far!
The very best is Chester blackberry jam made with Chester blackberries picked at West Union Farm!
I just did a gallon or so of tomato ketchup, most of which is in the deep freeze. Some of it will become gifts. I’m also quite fond of cranberry ketchup. I need to find a recipe for that one that lets me can it properly. I would think between the onions, cranberries, vinegar and sugar that it should be okay, but I err on the paranoid side.
But most of all, I love raspberry jam with really low amounts of sugar, some five spice, and with some amaretto thrown in.
A neighbor generously gives me some of her back-yard grown citrus fruit, and with the oranges I make marmalade that I enjoy for the rest of the year. I also make orange sorbet, but the preservation lasts maybe a week, because we can’t stop eating it! I share some of my marm with my benefactor, so we both get to enjoy her harvest long after the season is over. In a couple of months….mmmm! New harvest!
Anise spiced plum preserves….I serve it over cider roasted pork loin……crazy good!
Love love b&b pickles my mother-in-law used to make! Could not cook worth a dam but her pickles were heavenly!!!!
Bernie 🙂
Pickles…the spicier the better.
fresh rasberry jam….play well
After my work week is over, weekends during the last two months have been spent putting up the bounty of this summers’ garden. My favorite of all is Jam made from the fruit of the flowering Quince bush that grows at the side of my house. It blooms with vivid deep pink blossoms in the spring, and the resulting jam produced from the humble yellow golf ball sized fruit turns a clear beautiful reddish hue. It looks and has the consistancy of red honey, and it so wonderful to eat.
~Connie
This is just my second year canning so I haven’t branched out to try anything very unusual. I love our strawberry jam because our strawberries are just so good! This year I canned green bean soup which has ham hocks in it–the first time I’ve canned anything with meat in it.
Definitely jam! I try to make a new kind every year. Pickles are a close second, though.
Italian Plum Jam-cannot get enough
Plum jam! But thinking about maybe getting on this apple butter train now that its cold…
I have to say it is a tomato jam with fresh herbs de provence!
For whatever reason I find myself canning a lot of jams – blueberry, raspberry, plum – and I love them. But my hear truly belongs to dilly beans. There’s just nothing better than their slight crunch, tangy zip, and dilly goodness.
My favorite thing to preserve is Italian camponata. Can be used as a great vegetarian main dish, but we love it spread on a nice piece of crusty Italian bread as an appetizer. Such a wonderful thing to use with all the eggplant around and all the fresh tomatoes in season. Mangia!!
Apple butter is my current favorite. Nothing fancy, but it sure is tasty!
I love making blackberry and raspberry jams. My girlfriend makes an orange raspberry jam that is to die for. My favorite thing to put by is chicken stock. I love making it and seeing it in my jars on the shelf. Taking odds and ends, and making something really wonderful with it.
I don’t can yet, but would definitely like to try one day. I remember my Grandmom canning foods as a child, and I was always fascinated by the whole process. The products in the prize basket sound amazing!
About 25 years ago, my mother-in-law taught me how to make chow-chow and my husband and I just recently made a huge batch of it. We love it!
I love making spicy tomato jam. I’m also a big fan of spicy pickled green tomatoes, super yummy! And apple butter with rum and vanilla make the house smell so good!
I like to preserve a very spicy pepper pickle recipe. Great heat in the winter. 🙂
I canned my first Apple Butter this year (Sea Salt Caramel Apple Butter), I think that is my new favorite! Or at least it ties with Crab Apple Jelly.
Lots of love but SB has to be my favorite!
Strawberry rhubarb jam with vanilla bean—my first jam made without commercial pectin, and it was so good I kept on making it and moved on to others in the same vein…
Please, pick me i love new recipes
Probably a nice peach butter–just so summery!
I’ve just started preserving, and I only have apple butter under my belt (and in my tummy) so far, but it was very fun to make!
Peaches from our own small orchard. Summer and sunshine in a jar when opened during the long winter season.
Pickled jalapenos. Easy, inexpensive, and the juice is great in meat marinades.