On first glance, The Little Book of Home Preserving might not catch your eye. It’s a tiny book (truly, no bigger than the size of my hand) and could easily get lost in a larger display. However, missing this book would be a huge mistake. Written and photographed by Rebecca Gagnon (author of the blog CakeWalk), it is bursting with interesting, creative recipes.
For a little book, this volume packs a serious punch. It opens with the basics of preserving, including safety tips, the equipment you’ll need to get started canning, and even instructions on how to strain whey from yogurt in order to follow the lacto-fermentation recipes in the book. Rebecca also touches on the inherent art of making preserves, which is a section I particularly like and relate to.
Once you get into the meat of the book, you see that it’s organized by season. I’m hoping against hope that my CSA will still have a few ground cherries left next week so that I can make a batch of the Citrus Chai Ground Cherry Preserves. I’ve also got my sights set on the Grapefruit Jam with Vanilla and Poppy Seed (the picture of that one in preserve is so gorgeous).
Rebecca sent me an extra copy of her book to share with one of my readers, so we’re having a super special weekend long giveaway. One lucky person will win a copy. However, no matter whether you win or not, I highly suggest picking up a copy. It’s size makes it perfect for slipping into Christmas stockings and at $6.57 on Amazon
Here’s how to enter:
- Leave a comment on this post and share what you’re preserving this weekend.
- Comments will close at 11:59 pm east coast time on Sunday, October 13, 2013. Winners will be chosen at random (using random.org) and will be posted on Monday, October 14, 2013.
- Giveaway is open to US and Canadian residents.
- One comment per person, please. Entries must be left on the blog, I cannot accept submissions via email.
apple butter 🙂
I recently made apple pie filling, apple butter and applesauce!
I tried apple butter today, but couldn’t see it through since I had to have eyes on my daughter all day because she is potty training!
Green tomatoes… before the frost hits next week.
I canned 24 pints of chili sauce and have already given 6 of them away.
It is a sweet chili sauce recipe from my mother. It includes 45 tomatoes, 24 apples, 3 peppers, 10 onions along with vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, ginger and salt.
Delicious in meatloaf and on roast pork and pork chops.
This weekend I’m canning venison…while my husband is back up in the tree stand. LOL
I dehydrated half a jar of pasta sauce overnight last night, and this morning I made 4 Tex-Mex crockpot shredded chicken to freeze for future dinners, and a pound of taco meat to also freeze for future meals for the two of us! Then I made chocolate chip vanilla ice cream which will be preserved in the freezer for a short time, as my son and his family will be visiting next weekend! (I did sneak a bowl after dinner though!) I’m on a roll this weekend!
Will be trying out your pear vanilla jam, since my coop basket was loaded with pears this week!
This weekend I’m pickling cranberries and dehydrating habaneros.
It’s time for the last of the apples. Preparations for future pies!
Just made some Cowboy Candy. Easy and good way to use up some extra jalapenos.
I’m up to my eyeballs in Apple Butter, yummy, Apple Butter!
I’m taking a break from actual canning this week, but I will probably freeze some chili!
I will be canning apple sauce, apple butter, pumpkin, tomatoes and salsa this weekend.
This weekend it’s pear butter. It’s such a good year for pears!
I just stopped at the local apple orchard today. Planning to make some applesauce! Looks like a great book!!
This weekend it’s red beets. They’re the only thing left in my garden.
I might be preserving some pears I ordered from a wholesaler. I thought I was getting 9 pears, but it turns out they meant 9 pounds of pears!
I’d love to add this to my library!
Oh I wish I had something to put up this weekend…it’s Canadian Thanksgiving so all my thoughts are on turkey!! Many thanks for the chance.
My weekend is done already (I live in a tourist economy where weekends are for visitors, not locals!) and I canned a large batch of applesauce and some of your simple pickled jalapenos over my “weekend.” My preserving season is wrapping up quickly (I’m almost out of empty jars), but I hope to get a batch of either chocolate pear or pear vanilla jam canned soon for Christmas presents.
Yay–this book sounds great! Finally, something to do with all the persimmons in town. 🙂 I am out of town, so there’s no preserving happening this weekend, but I’m thinking about roasting a bunch of red peppers and throwing them in the freezer when I get back…does that count? 🙂
Your book looks beautiful. I’m apple picking and making and apple cranberry jam tomorrow.
II am canning pear butter this weekend… working through a big box of red bartlett pears I picked up in Eastern Washington this week.
I am buying lots of interesting apples (Arkansas Black, Limbertwig, Pippin, Crimson Crisp, Rusty Gold, Stayman Winesap, Sheepnose) in Asheville, NC to take home to FL. I am not sure what the TSA thinks of my luggage! The apples will be made into applesauce, pies, and apple pie jam.
It’s Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend, so I’m not going to be canning anything this weekend. Instead, I’ll be roasting turkey, baking pumpkin pies, spending time with family, and giving thanks! 🙂
I hope to put up more pears… I’ve sent the boys out to Nana’s to check for any left. It has been a marvelous fruit season in southern Michigan this year!!!
I made pasta sauce and ketchup already today, and will finish the day out by making bourbon peach jam.
Just bought some amazing apples at the farmer’s market… looks like tomorrow will be slow cooker apple butter!
We combatted the stuffed fridge by making a double batch if pesto and pickled beets!
Wish I had this today. Making Applesauce to can. Next week is Apple butter and the week after that is Pumpkin butter. Wondering what I could do with zucchini and squash. Looks like a great book that will do quite well. Thanks, Lori
I’m making Pear Butter at this very moment!
This next week I’m making apple ginger jam!
Just put up some salsa today with the last of our tomatoes.
I need to take the time to make some F.R.O.G. Jam. I didn’t have the time during the season so I froze the figs and raspberries for when I had the time to make it. I’m almost out of jam and need to get moving, lol.
I am working on pears today! thinking about a pear / cranberry combination. MMMM
Hopefully some Chow-Chow.
I’m still working my way through a pile of apples. I’m planning on hot apple jam, and maybe some more fruit in wine for Christmas presents.
I would love to have this book. I just finished canning taco sauce. Still have a few tomatoes ripening but not enough to can
I’ll be preserving ketchup and plum pie filling. Yum!
Finished tomatoes now moving on to apples.
I just picked grapes! Wouuld love this book.. im just starting out
Nothing, unfortunately, unless the green tomatoes come ripe a lot faster than anticipated. If they do, I’ll be brewing up some tomato sauce 🙂
This book would be awesome. I have been making Banana Split Jam. It is delicious. I see you have it open to persimmons. Wish they grew and/or were sold here in Minnesota.
So I did not get the amount of tomatoes I wanted this year off my plants – I planted way too late. So they are ripening one by one in the cold room. No salsa this year. But cranberries are being made into relish this weekend!
Homemade sauerkraut is about to get fermenting on the counters here! Adding the book to my Amazon list!
I am going to use squash I baked this morning to make a sweet bread with that ,crushed pineapple and walnuts ! Sounds yummy and I have never made this recipe before so very anxious to give it a try !! That little cookbook is the cutest thing ever and if I do not win ( which i never do) I will be sure to order it .
I just got the dehydrator out of the cabinet to dry some the the apples my neighbor brought over a couple of days ago.
Oh boy do I need this! I just started the master preserver program in southern CA. I have persimmons coming out my ears and no recipe for jam!! This is the first good one that I have found-I need this book! We do a fund raiser called “persimmon party” in old Towne orange
My fiance and I will be canning more tomatoes, habanero sauce and applesauce. No preserves this weekend, but maybe soon!
My weekend came and went, and I made salsa verde for cooking from the NCFP website.
I’ll be making carrot cake jam (yum!) and bourbon vanilla peach jam. Can’t wait to taste my work!
This weekend i will preserve apples – sliced and apple butter.
I am pickling some watermelon and tomatos
Have a lot of persimmons would love to do something with them like jam and homemade bread for Christmas presents for friends.
This weekend I’ll be preserving peppers and apples.. Making pickled pepper rings from hot & sweet Italian peppers and dehydrating lots of apples.
40 pounds of tomatoes, tomatillo salsa and pickled fennel. Not sure if this counts but im also starting a bunch of cider to ferment
Love this site, love you book! I use it all the time and I am using it as the basis for Christmas present baskets.
This weekend my mum and I are canning my version of Apple Pie Filing. I originally got this recipe from my husband’s grandmother. It was very good, but also very sweet and seemed to lack enough spices and brown sugar to make it truly personal. I always get requests for my French Apple Pie, but I loath peeling all the apples. I customized the apple pie filing recipe to taste more like my own, and when I am in need of a quick desert, I just pop some into a crust or sprinkle the filling with some oats and raisins, and off we go!
I have harvested the very last of my wonderful okra. I’m pickling it using a recipe I learned from Hattie – a sweet Southern lady who taught me about the love that goes into canning and blessing others with this love.
I’m working through tomatoes–sauce, salsa, and green tomato relish. I’d love to read this book! Thanks for the chance to win!
“Boozey Peach Jam” (brandied Peach) for the holiday gifts!
I’m going to be working on some apple preserves. I want to try my hand at apple butter!
Nothing aside from chopping and freezing a couple of pineapples. I’m still waiting for the last of my tomatoes to ripen before I start in on that project (the rest are waiting in the freezer).
Nothing this weekend… have to plan for next weekend!
Trying to knock out some apple butter. First time’s a charm!
I’m away from home this weekend, but I am looking forward to preserving some apple products when I get back – especially the apple cider syrup recipe you posted the other day.
I will be trying to preserve my sanity… No canning this weekend — too many other chores….
I want this little book just for the Persimmon jam recipe! YUM!
Just finished zucchini and cauliflower pickles, this long weekend I’ll be making three batches of tomato jam.
I am dehydrating Black Elfin Saddle mushrooms for use later this winter in soups. I just got done with a big batch of Puffball mushrooms (YES! They ARE edible) and also the ever popular Chanterelle mushrooms. I also have some Kiwi that will go into the dehydrator this evening.
I am about to walk out into my garden to check whether the bounty of fruit on my olive trees looks ripe enough for harvesting. If so, I will then be on the hunt for instructions on how to brine them, and I would be so thrilled if you were to post a good recipe here! My husband, watching my beginner preserving efforts over the past two years since we’ve bought this house (which has a prolific garden), recently gave me your book, Food in Jars, on the recommendation of Ovid Vineyards. In addition to my giving a try to a number of the recipes, you’ve also already saved me from naively canning pear sauce without knowing that pears are not necessarily safe for doing so. Thank you!
I put up food and love it. Thanks to a group of really special folks I was donated a PC last month and I just can’t get enough recipes! I have been eyeing this book for a good hot minute.
Just finished canning all the pears from my tree in jams and chutneys. Looking for persimmon jam recipes.
OOOHHH looks so yummy, what a great little book!
I don’t know if I’m preserving anything this weekend, but I’ll be eating tomato jam and peach bourbon marmalade I made this summer.
I love to can all kinds of things. I enjoy making homemade gifts for Christmas. It WOULD make a nice stocking stuffer, but if I were blessed enough to win it, I would keep it!!
I’m going to try your recipe for dilly beans. After an unusual rainstorm here in S. California, I harvested a big batch of green beans.
I was given two five gallon buckets of pears so I am canning pears in light syrup, carrot cake jam, pear and cinnamon jam, and pear butter!
I made homemade strawberry jam this past weekend this week is Apples…I live to can food.
I just picked 2 H U G E baskets of meyer lemons…lemon curd for sure : )
I’m preserving my energy. It’s been a tough week and I have a lot of catching up to do. I wish I could spend time canning…
I’ll be pickling okra! I am just really getting into canning and preserving and this book looks like it would be a treasure trove of ideas!
Apple butter!
Pear sauce! –djs
I will be canning pepper jelly and apple cider.
will be canning beets, beets, beets!
I am just starting to can things. We are gonna try to do applesauce. This would be perfect to start off with
What a cute book! I’ve got mustard in the works for the weekend. The pantry shelves are full, just how I like them, so the mustard might need more creative storage 🙂
If we can source some fresh pressed cider — we plan to try making hard cider for the first time!
This is the first year of preserving our food. It has been very satisfying and tiring, but worth the work. I am looking forward to finding meals in my storage rather than the store. Your website has been very helpful. Thanks.
this weekend i’ll be making apple butter in my slow cooker! i’m so excited for fall fruit!
Not perserving anything thisweekend, however, my daughter is now getting into jams and I would like to win this book to give her for Christmas. Happy Thanksgiiving everyone.
All Day Apple Butter is in the slow cooker, making the house smell amazing. Going to use the peels and cores for an expiremental apple cider!
I plan to put up Hawaiian Cowboy Candy over the weekend. I’ve never canned it before, but I’m excited for the adventure!
I am canning lavender Asian pear jam.
I am canning up a delicious apple mincemeat! This is the second batch, I’m rooting for three! Bring on the apples!
I made apple butter this weekend! Put it in the jars this morning when I got up!
Still making cowboy candy with the last 7 pounds of our garden jalapenos!
Book looks so sweet!
I had a stroke in September. I may not preserve at all this year.
Not preserving. Making Impossible Vegan Pumpkin Pie for a potluck.