I spent most of this past Friday in Lancaster County. It was a full day, including a book signing at DogStar Books, a canning class at the Lemon Street Market (an awesome resource for bulk staples and gluten-free food) and a potluck with the Essen Cookbook Club.
Every part of the day was terrific, but the potluck was a particular treat. Organized by Essen owner Betsey Gerstein Sterenfeld, the Cookbook Club meets every three months and each gathering features food from a single cookbook. This time, they focused their efforts on Food in Jars.
Because my book doesn’t include much in the way of finished dishes, they embraced the concept of Preserves in Action and used many of my recipes as starting places for finished dishes. There was sausage in my marinara sauce, a pork roast topped with the cherries in red wine syrup and several of the mixes in jars baked up to their finished state.
Betsey made a layered salad of ricotta cheese, cantaloupe jam, torn basil and cucumber slices. It might sound a little strange, but it was awesome. I had three servings.
This arugula salad with the pickled cauliflower was particularly nice!
Jam and scones!
Maple pecan granola, served with applesauce (which is actually how I often eat it. Tastes like instant apple crisp).
Truly, the whole potluck was a total treat. Many thanks to Betsey from Essen for coordinating and for all the Cookbook Club members for taking the time to make so many of my recipes. I so enjoyed meeting everyone!
In other news, the winner of the A Year of Pies giveaway is commenter #236. That’s Carlie from able-bodied girl. Carlie, I’ll be in touch shortly to get your contact info.
What a sweet party in your honor! 🙂
I made your peach jam recipe from your book this weekend and it is spectacular! Everyone said it tasted just like peach pie. The cinnamon and fresh nutmeg made it.
What a gratifying meal that must have been! Fantastic idea.
Wow. What an awesome way to honor the guest of honor! Everything looked delicious, although that’s not surprising considering the source of the recipes and dish inspirations. 🙂
What is that delicious looking thing to the right of the trio of jams???
Do you mean the scones? They are based on the cranberry orange scone recipe found here on the blog.
Now that sounds like a fun book club!
What a terrific compliment to you! 🙂
I got to be honest, when I first saw the picture of the granola with the applesauce I didn’t think it looked appetizing at all but reading your caption makes me want to try it now! Apple crisp, yum 🙂
I made the cantelope jam and now I’m going to have to make that salad. The jam is awesome.
Ooh, how fun! I found this because I was searching for any info on the roasted corn salsa recipe and it brought me here. That must have been quite the experience–I’d be completely overwhelmed at all the amazing ideas people came up with to use the canned recipes!
So, long story short, and my question: I just made the Roasted Corn Salsa, and I used 8 ears of corn like it says in the book, but it looked like quite a lot considering a 4 pint yield. So, I backed off on the onion and pepper amounts by about 1/2 cup each to compensate (since they’re low acid, right?) but somehow, I still ended up with 5 pints instead of 4. Are these safe, do you think? I also used a smidge more ACV (probably 1/8 cup extra). I noticed on Macheesmo’s site he did it and said he got 4-5 pints, depending?
I’ve been searching out other recipes that have been tested and found this forum discussion about Sherri Brooks Vinton’s recipe in “Put ‘Em Up!” for a similar salsa. Hers actually has less added acid (proportionally for the amount of corn called for) than the Roasted Corn Salsa, so I think I may have just answered my own question and it should be fine (since technically it’s just like a corn relish, but the addition of tomatoes actually raises the pH a bit from the get-go). Here’s the link to what I found: http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/harvest/msg0715105730705.html
With every recipe, yields will vary. My ears of corn yield between 1/3 and 1/2 cup corn once it’s sliced off the cob. However, the size of corn cobs vary a whole lot, so as long as you stick with 3 – 3 1/2 cups of corn, you should be okay. And, there’s quite a lot of acid in this recipe, so even if you use a bit more corn, you’ll be good.
Thanks so much for the reply! It is SUCH amazing salsa, by the way! Everyone, go buy her book!!! 🙂