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
I love pickles! I remember helping my grandmother make pickles, jams and jellies. <3
My favorite thing to can is orange and cranberry jam. This looks like an awesome book! Congratulations on your publication!!!
Iced Coffee for sure 🙂
Jams of all kinds are my favorite.
my favorite thing to can is applebutter. Everyone loves home-made applebutter and i love to smell it cooking..mmmmmm!
I think the greatest thing to ever come out of a jar is salsa (followed closely by Nutella). What I want to do and learn is how to do dry soup mixes. I’ll be living on my own soon and this would really help me with eating right, so I hope I win!
I love pickling items the best and also salsa. Nothing feels better than seeing rows of harvest gatehring on your shelves. I’d Love to win this book, thanks for the chance.
I love all sorts of things in jar, but my favorite, because it’s what started me preserving, is tomatoes (sauce, whole, chopped).
This cook book looks original and full of new, energetic recipes. My favorite thing in a jar would have to be fruit juices. It was very hard to decide on one, though 🙂 May you have a very blessed and enjoyable Memorial Day Weekend.
I love making apple and pear butter, and fig and pear jam and preserves
Either jelly or pickles. I need them both.
I have a soft spot for everything in jars, but I think my favorite and most used is Tea!
Mustards, pickles, jams & jellies, tomato sauces are all wonderful, but must admit that chutneys are my favorite. A spoon, a jar, and I’m smiling. 🙂
I love Jams and Jellies!!! Not only on breads, but I use to marinade meats and incorporate in my baking. I would love to try the many recipes in this book. They look yummy. Thanks Sally
Apple Butter, Pickles, frozen drinks…..really there is no way to choose one!! Cant wait to get your book whether won or purchased!! 🙂
I love to cook and I love to can and I have been doing both for over 40 years now….I learned from my great grandmother (who was born in 1875). I love to put up jams and pickles, especially with food that I have grown myself. My son is also carrying on the heritage, and that makes me proud too. I bet that he’s got a comment in here also trying to get a free copy of the book!
My favorite food in jars is jams/jellies, pickles, & if course, iced coffee!! I am rather new to canning and would LOVE LOVE LOVE to have a copy of this book so I can become an expert and share what I learn with others!! 😉
My favorite jarred food that I have to have in my fridge is chutney. We make our own, and have made a variety depending on what’s available when we run out. For a few years we made kiwi chutney because my mom’s brother was growing them at the time and would send us a box-full – we had to do something with them!
My favorite canned item is blueberry jam soooo good!!!
My favorite food in a jar? The grilled pickles I recently made. Not because I like pickles- I don’t, actually… but because they were so much fun to make! And everyone loved them!
strawberry-rhubarb jam!
Mango salsa and any kind of pickles 🙂
soup any kind will do
I love jams!! i just tried strawberry balsamic jam….love!!
My favorite food in jars is my slow cooker apple butter– it is a big hit not only in our house but with friends and family as well.
What a beautiful cookbook!
My favorite thing to can is applesauce. My grandsons love it and I use it in cakes as well.
My FAVORITE thing is a jar is apple butter! Pickled zucchini chips are a close second.
Pickled anything. 🙂
I love canning salsa and pickles. The book looks Awesome!!
Jam in jars, also syrup of any kind!
Carol
I love canning pickles, especially sour ones!
Absolutely no doubt that peach salsa is my favorite here in the Heart of Dixie.
Thanks! Virginia
Strawberry jam is one of my favorites. My boys loved canned pears.
I don’t have a lot of experience at canning (yet) with the exception of making jam. I’d like to be more adventurous and your book looks like just the tool I need. Congratulations on your new book. I wish you lots of success.
I’ve followed your blog for awhile and love all the tips and techniques you share. Unfortunately I’m not very “computer literate” so we’ll see if my post takes this time. Your cookbook looks absolutely wonderful. Congratulations! We love to can stewed tomatoes, pickles, beans, salsa, and anything else that presents itself abundently in the garden! I’ll let you in on a sad experience…the best lettuce we’ve ever grown came up from volunteers dumped in the garden from our patio pots of lettuce. This spring lettuce was GEORGEOUS and delicious! Guess the lesson is we tend to plant too dense; fewer seeds make better plants ? LOL
I love anything that brings the fresh tastes of summer into my kitchen in the dead of winter. Be it opening a jar of salsa, tomato sauce, canned tomatoes, jam, or fruit butter. It brings me back to summer and the process of growing, harvesting, preparing and preserving. I love venturing down to my basement to admire my trove of canning goodness.
My favorite food in jars: the sliced bread-and-butter cucumber pickles my parents made together every year. Our entire backyard was a vegetable garden my father planted every year, and canning was one of my parents’ favorite shared rituals as a couple. Every summer and fall our kitchen would be crammed with blue-green Ball glass Mason jars and the mysterious appliance known as a pressure cooker. These sweet-and-sour ‘cukes’ were one of my parents’ favorite recipes, and mine too. I can still taste the mustard seed; sometimes I even drank the liquid when no one else was looking.
Rhubarb syrup! Making a batch next weekend. Kids love my applesauce 🙂
I loved having canned tomatoes so much better tasting than from the store! 🙂
I have never canned or jarred before. I’ve wanted to, but just never took the initiative. I own a small pot and jar holder with some half pint jars and lids that my wife has used to make blackberry jam. I was looking at rhubarb recipes on the web (as I have way too much rhubarb – six plants and was sick of the usual rhubarb pies and crisps) and came across your rhubarb chutney recipe. It sounded so good that I had to try it out. Your recipe made it look so easy. It was indeed! I ended up with four half pint jars of the chutney. One was used to go with grilled pork tenderloin. So very good! So thank you for making my first time experience a pleasant one. I will be making more Food In Jars soon.
Love, love, love jams and marmalades.
Some kind of butter, pear butter, apple butter, etc. Mmmm.
I look forward to meeting you next month when I take your class at Delancey! Will you be bringing books to sell/sign?
I love making big batches of tomatillo salsa.
Favorite thing…..pepper jelly. The book looks Amazing – the pictures are gorgeous!
I am glad I found your blog. My husband is deployed and I am planning to do some canning so I can send him some home-cooked meals. I have a feeling your info/experience will be a big help.
My mom cans and I love her salsa and jams and jalapeños. The only things I’ve done so far are zucchini bread and birthday cake (both to send to my husband), but I plan to remedy that soon!
My favorite food in jars is the last thing I put up into a jar. I love listening to the ping when the jar seals, I love wiping off the jars (which is actually just an excuse to admire the contents), I really love when my kids ask me to send them home with a jar. I’ve even had my nephew ask me to mail them to Korea!
My all time favorite is picked pears but I have developed a new love for homemade applesauce – soooooo much better than the stuff from the store! I want to make strawberry jam and can some cherries this year but unfortunately, the prices are still way to high!
Going into my second summer cannon, And My favorite and that of all my friends so far has been the zesty zucchini relish from the Ball complete book of home preserving. Can’t make enough of the stuff!
I think my favorite would have to be jam. I love chopping up mountains of ripe fruit, the gorgeous sensory experience of making jam, and also the many months of popping open lovely jars of goodness for my family or having something sweet to give away.
I love making pickled/dilled green beans, and fruit preserves great to open up in the dead of winter or any time.