Naturally Sweet Food in Jars is my third cookbook and was published in March 2016. It focuses on preserving with honey, maple, agave, coconut sugar, fruit juice concentrates, and dried fruits. You can find an array of ordering options here.
The idea for this book was initially sparked by this post, as well as the many alternatively sweetened recipes that have come since on this site. The finished book features more than 100 recipes for preserves, as well as a handful of recipes designed to help you use up some of what you’ve put up.
I had two primary goals in mind when I was writing Naturally Sweet. The first was to translate some of my most beloved sugar-sweetened recipes into those that used less refined sweeteners.
The second objective was to create new and novel recipes that would be safe for canning and that featured the various sweeteners in ways that made the most of their unique, individual flavors.
I also wanted to help change the conversation about preserving. So often, people dismiss it because they feel like the products created when you preserve aren’t always the healthiest.
However, by shining a spotlight on alternative sweeteners, I feel like I’ve created a collection of recipes that are able to balance health concerns with issues of safety and shelf stability.
And, as always, the recipes are relatively small batches that don’t require too much of your time and energy.
Happy birthday Marisa! Cheesecake on my birthday makes me happy.
Happy Birthday Marisa!
When I celebrate my birthday I love to make eggplant parmesan!
Happy Birthday! I’m not a big cake fan, preferring pie instead. I love to eat my Momma’s chocolate pie for my birthday, even better when she is the one making it!
Happy Birthday. I love pie, strawberry rhubarb is my favorite. Also sour cherry or blueberry.
Happy Birthday! My birthday cake always has to be chocolate and made by someone else because I was once told that making your own birthday cake (as much as I would love to do so) is against international birthday law 😉
Happy Birthday! I think you will like 37. I like white cake with white frosting – especially if there is almond flavoring and/or coconut involved – on my birthday. Heresy, I know, but no chocolate for me. 🙂
Happy Birthday. May you have a great year!
Happy happy birthday to you!
Cheese cake it my birthday cake since I was a little girl…everyone found that strange but my Mom made the best.
Sugar Cookies
Happy Birthday! While I am not a fan of my birthday, I adore helping others celebrate theirs!
Happy birthday, and congrats on the new book! I like yellow cake with chocolate buttercream frosting for my birthday. 🙂
My birthday is this Saturday and I love my husbands chocolate cake! ( Betty Crocker….lol)
Hope you have a wonderful, Happy Birthday!
Happy Birthday! I also like to eat anything I don’t have to cook.
Happy birthday! I like cake for breakfast on my day.
Happy Birthday!
For my birthday I like to eat anything I didn’t have to cook! Have a great birthday weekend.
Happy Birthday. Shrimp at a beachside restaurant.
Happy Birthday! My favorite food to eat on my birthday is crab legs and cheesecake (not at the same time).
Lobster in maine is without a doubt my birthday meal
Has been for the past 13 years
Cake! of course. And we get dressed up and go to a new or favorite restaurant.
Happy Birthday!
Happy Birthday! I know it gross, but I really love overly sweet grocery-store birthday cake. It just taste like birthday!!
We pick a new restaurant to try for supper on our birthdays so I look forward to trying something new and not cooking for a night!
Happy Birthday..So kind of you to give us a chance to win a copy of your book on your birthday. My favorite cake is a white cake. When I was young, our baker (neighbor) would make extra wedding cake batter for my birthday cake. So sweet of him. Hope you had a great birthday. Coming back to Pittsburgh?
Anything that I don’t have to cook !! In our family, the birthday person gets to pick where we eat out on their birthday.
Happy Birthday!
I am just learning about your blog and food in jars cookbooks. I love canning jams in the summertime and I’m on a journey of reducing my sugar intake, so your new book looks so interesting. Thanks for all of your more natural and low sugar recipes!
Happy birthday. I hope you realize how young 37 REALLY is!!! My favorite food on my birthday would be an old-fashioned yellow cake with cooked fudgy icing. I haven’t been able to duplicate the ones my mother made, despite my efforts. It’s fun to keep trying, however.
Happy Birthday! I get a chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting for my birthday every year.
My four siblings and I got to choose whatever we wanted for our birthday dinner. Our mom was a wonderful cook and would tackle just about anything. Our choices ranged from pizza to sauerbraten(my choice). Talk about lucking out-I’m the oldest and mom was still cooking strong just before she passed away at 86! Now I just cook it every year for all of us-and we “prosit” to Grandma!
Happy Birthday! I don’t have a favorite food for my birthday but I do love to make jams, jellies and preserves. I’ve only used traditional pectin and sugar methods, so I was excited to see recipes with other sweeteners used in canning.
Growing up, my grandmother would make each family member an angel food cake with lemon glaze for their birthday. It was a box mix, but it was a really good box mix that had separate powdered egg whites that you would mix with water then fold into the rest of the batter. Sadly, all the companies stopped making the two part mixes. The ones out now taste like crap. It takes a lot of egg whites to make an angel food cake so I don’t get too many opportunities to make one. But when I do, I always make the same lemon glaze that my grandmother did and it is my favorite birthday treat.
Happy Birthday!
I just enjoy getting together with family to celebrate birthdays.
I like to eat ANYTHING that I do not have to make myself for my birthday!
I have been making a lot of your recipes and would enjoy this book I’m sure.
watermelon. Good thing my birthday is in July.
Happy Birthday!
My birthday is coming up next month, but I don’t have a tradition or favorite food that I’m looking forward to. I think I’d like to go out (so I don’t have to cook) and taste some new beers at a local brewery with friends and family.
Carrot cake 🙂
Happy birthday, thanks for the giveaway!!
Happy birthday!!!!! My favorite food is coffee ice cream….don’t know why but I love it!!!!!!!!
Happy Birthday, Marisa! I’d like to eat my gradmother’s Irish Potato Cake Cake for my birthday, the perfect combo of cocoa, lemon, coconut and unexpected potatoes in the mix! Cathy F.
Well Happy Birthday! My favorite birthday food is always too much cake. German chocolate or carrot cake suits me just fine. Before that I like to get my wife to make me a meatloaf. I know it’s simple but I love it. Just like she would love this book!
Happy happy birthday. My favorite borthday treat wouls be angel food cake. Growing up it was this special cake for all birthday celebrations. I still remember one birthday when I wa around 8 at my grandparents and my grandma asked me what color to make the merange icing. She didn’t bat an eye when I asked for black.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I’d love to eat a flourless chocolate cake with fresh raspberry sauce, mixed berries and freshly whipped cream on my birthday.
Happy, happy birthday!
Happy Birthday to you. I like to have shrimp for my birthday dinner. I don’t eat dessert anymore so my special love is to have fresh fruit! Hope that your day is special and filled with wonderful surprises. Of course I would love to get your book, but that goes without saying.
Ooo, Happy Birthday! It’s also my nephews and he’s a big foodie, even at 12 🙂 I’d love a copy of your book to try new things.Thanks for being so generous.
Happy birthday! I love my mom’s homemade coconut cake on my birthday. Would love your book. Thanks for the chance!
Happy Birthday! My favorite treat is cheesecake. We usually make our buy a plain cheesecake then we open several jars of my homemade home canned jams. Favorites are seedless boysen/marionberry jam and the raspberry, cherry, rhubarb jam. So much more flavorful on a wonderful occasion.
Happy Birthday ?
Happy Birthday!!
Happy Birthday!!! My favorite thing to eat on my birthday is a lemon cake with a lemon buttercream icing.
Happy Birthday to you!
I have so many things I enjoy, though cheesecake on a almond coconut crust made with goat cheese and honey with my own preserves might possibly be my favorite!