So often over the life of this blog, I’ve written about beautiful cookbooks. These posts are fun for me to write because I love any excuse to sit awhile with a new cookery volume and explore what it has to offer. Many of you take the time to write me an email or leave a comment, to tell me how useful you find these cookbook pieces, because they give you a chance to peek inside a book in a way that’s different from the experience on Amazon.
Today’s cookbook feature is a particularly unique joy, because this time, I’m sharing my own book
To my mind, the book is a tangible embodiment of this website. It brings together the most popular recipes from the archives as well as a number of new recipes you’ve never seen before. All the previously-published recipes were retested and rewritten before being included in the manuscript to ensure that they were the best versions of themselves. Many were also scaled down to yield just three or four pints, to keep with the small batch theme.
It includes detailed canning instructions (with helpful instructional pictures!), tips on how to determine whether your jam has reached its set point, a guide for adjusting processing time for altitude and all the best safety practices.
The recipes are sorted by genre, so that all the pickles are in one chapter, jellies in another and so on. Within each section, the recipes are arranged by season, so that each spring, you can start at the beginning of the jam chapter and then work your way through to the end.
The book is also full of really gorgeous images. Truly, my jars have never looked better. The photography was done by Steve Legato, at his Philadelphia studio, and it was such a pleasure to watch him work. Also, I made all the canned goods pictured, so you can trust that your finished products should look pretty darn close to what you see.
Another way I tried to keep the book tied closely to this site is that it’s not just about canning. Towards the back of the book, you’ll find sections devoted to nut butters, granolas, bread and scone mixes in jars and even flavored salts. There’s also information about how to best freeze different fruits and vegetables, and some details on pressure canning low acid foods.
Finally, the reason I think so many of you will like the book is that it’s me. It’s my voice, the same one you read here day after day. I’m always working to write about food preservation in a way that conveys the fact that it’s a joy, not a chore. That feeling ribbons throughout the book. I love joining so many of you in your kitchens through this blog and I hope I’ll get to do the same through the book.
Thanks to my kind publicist at Running Press, I have three copies of the Food in Jars
- To enter the giveaway, leave a comment on this post and share your favorite kind of food in jars. Jam? Jelly? Pickles? Chutney? Canned peaches? Granola? Iced coffee? There is no wrong answer.
- Comments will close at 11:59 pm eastern time on Sunday, May 27, 2012. Winner will be chosen at random (using random.org) and will be posted to the blog on Monday, May 28, 2012.
- Giveaway is open to U.S. and Canadian readers.
- One entry/comment per person, please.
If you can’t bear to wait and see if you win the giveaway, you can always order a copy by clicking here: Food in Jars: Preserving in Small Batches Year-Round
Cold brew iced coffee, dark chocolate m&m that I store in jars and pickled okra.
Bread and butter pickles
I love to have a meal in a jar, like my delicious soups, that warm the tummy and the soul and soothe the aches of a winter day as nothing else can.
Blueberry honey jam. Mmmm
EVERYTHING. I LOVE IT ALL!! But…especially iced coffee 🙂
Plum fig chutney & bread & butter pickles with hot peppers. Yummy!! Oh my goodness, and dilly beans too (Anna K’s comment spurred my memory!). Congrats on your new book~
My favorite food in jars is yogurt! I make them in 8oz jars, a quart at a time, and pasteurize and culture the milk all in the same jar. Virtually no clean-up and no risk of attracting rogue bacteria from transferring back and forth :] Marmalade is a close runner-up though :B
I’m OBSESSED with making pickles right now. But would you know, I’ve never pickled a cucumber! I think the summer squash and zucchini spears were my faves. Oh, and obviously dilly beans. Yes, dilly beans.
I’m an Aussie stuck in Texas so I have to say by far the best food ever put in a jar is vegemite!
I love canning different jellies & jams (blackberry/blueberry jam…yum). But my husband bought me a pressure canner for Christmas so I’ve been into canning soups and chicken stock lately.
I’m looking forward to canning salsa and tomato sauce this summer!
Hope I win!
Prepared pie fillings..apple, bourbon pecan.
Apricot jam for me. Looking forward to a trip to the Okanagan, BC this summer to bring back home a basket full of fresh apricots for a nice batch of home-made jam.
hands down – marmalade!
Hmmm…I have to pick just one?! Either strawberry jam, cilantro salsa, or pickled onions, I guess. I’ve already bought Food in Jars, but I’d love to gift a copy to my BFF who just started canning. Thanks for the opportunity!
Granola, yogurt, jam, frozen peaches
We just polished off our last jar of homemade salsa a couple weeks ago (my tomato crop last year wasn’t so great, so I didn’t get to make nearly as much as I wished) — I felt like observing a moment of silence when I pulled out that last jar of it. The storebought stuff just doesn’t compare.
Oooh, and jam. Made from my own raspberries. Pure, unadulterated heaven. Pluot jam is also a hit at our house. (My in-laws have a pluot tree — a delicious combination of apricot and plum).
I’m new to your blog (I found it through the link on Ashley English’s Small Measure blog) — I’m so excited to find it. Your book looks lovely. If I don’t win a copy, I’m going to be purchasing one soon.
Hi Marisa…
I can’t remember if this is the correct way to leave a comment or not, but if not, please redirect my words!! I purchased one of your books and give it to my youngest daughter-in-law, a lovely young woman who I “introduced” to canning two hers ago…she reports that it is amazing…!! I thought of you on Tuesday as I attempted to “cobble together” a recipe for, of all things, RHUBARB BUTTER…!!!!!! After trying regular rhubarb jam recipes and finding them so sweet that the actual FLAVOR of the rhubarb is lost, I thought…if apple butter is nothing more than apple pulp, sugar (adjusted to taste) and spices, simmered down to the desired consistency, why could I NOT do the same thing with rhubarb…?!?!? Well, I did it, and the result was favorable, though not spectacular…big smile! The result was tangy because of the smaller amount of sugar that I used, but even after simmering the concoction for 45 minutes, it was still not as thick as I wold have liked…I will go “back to the drawing board” at some point, for we are rhubarb FANATICS in this house…! Know that I wish you great success with your book…!
Sincerely yours,
Corinne Schillinger
Iced coffee in the morning, jam in the noon time & pickles at dusk.
I just recently starting getting into tasty things in jars after my boyfriend gave me some boozy marmalade – I’d love to try a sweet jalepeno jelly like the ones they sell back home in Arizona. I can never find the right balance in big-batch ones.
Pickles. Anything pickled!!
saurkraut!!!!
Pickles 🙂
grapefruit segments in jars… oh my 🙂
My favorite food in jars to make is jam. I’ve tried my hand at it every few years since college when there was a u-pick strawberry field not TOO far from school. I followed the instructions in the pectin box and didn’t water bath can (it sounded like SUCH a much harder step!). However, your blog inspired me to try marmalade and different flavor combinations – and it perfected a jelly I tried last summer. Thank you for taking the mystery of set point out of the process! And for inspiring so many other foods in jars that are now flowing regularly from my kitchen!
All manners of jams. Strawberry! Raspberry! Plum! Yum!
Salsa and chutney are my favorites. I need to branch out and try something new.
Pickles, or salsa (when it’s out of season to make fresh).
Jelly! Especially less common varieties like hibiscus.
My mom’s canned peaches will always be my favorite.
Jams, jelly, marmalade, beets, pickles – I love them all! This year beets are on the top of my list.
I love any kind of homemade jams or jellies!!! Great looking book!
My fave…..homemade green relish for hots and hams!!
Jam and Tomatoes!!!
Pickles!! No, peach jam. No, pickles!
I already have my copy. Would love to give this to my daughter! I make pickled wild mushrooms and chutneys and salsas.
It’s a toss up. Tomatoes for usefulness, pickles for culinary pleasure.
Blood orange marmalade is my favorite. The book looks BEAUTIFUL!
My favorite food in jars is whatever I come home from the market with. Grains and beans and any other dry ingredients get dumped in their own jars and stored on the shelf; liquids from the market typically come in big jugs for the fridge; spices are divided into their own small jars — and then whenever anything is used, leftovers go straight to a jar as well!
Your book is beautiful. Can’t wait to own a copy, whether it through this giveaway or my own purchase.
Thanks!
The book is beautiful!! The recipes sound delicious too! I really love chutneys and hot sauces from my jars.
I was excited about this book before; now that I’ve had a peek inside, I can’t wait to get my hands on it. I’d say my favorite thing to make in jars is either peach salsa or blueberry pie filling.
I love all kinds of food in jars…. really good apricot jam is right up there though. Also cold brewed iced coffee.
Thank you for doing this giveaway!
Jellies & jams!
I have shelves full of cookbooks and this one looks yummy!
I hope I win, I would love to get this! I suppose my birthday is coming up and I can add it to the list if I don’t though ;).
Blackberry pomegranate jelly is my favorite food in jars. 4 c pom juice, 1 c blackberry juice, 7 c sugar, 1 box pectin. Amazing.
My favorite food in jars is jam, hands down.
My favorite food in jars (currently) – Greek yogurt with granola. Yums!
The blueberry jam I made last year was TO DIE FOR. But lately I’ve been cold brewing ice tea in a half gallon jar I picked up at the flea market. It’s pretty fantastic.
Pickles are my fav.
coconut water
I like peaches! I could easily sit down with a quart of home canned peaches and have the whole thing to myself. 🙂