the fact that we’d have no kitchen this summer led us to forego planting the garden as well—it was a good choice considering how busy we are and how much added work there is when undergoing a major home renovation. we are very relieved not to be worrying about watering and weeding or where the heck we are going to wash whole baskets of produce.
we still however, crave the sparkling flavors of fresh summer veggies and have been lucky to rely on the kindness of friends and neighbors who are sharing the overflow from their gardens. in particular, our dear friend beckie not only lends her kitchen weekly for me to prepare foods for freezing, but never sends me home without a basket of greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, or even eggs for our table.
throughout the season, we’ve been getting together at her house to bag up berries, peaches, tomatoes—all those fruits that are too sticky to deal with when one doesn’t have a sink big enough to wash them.
in a corner of the porch we are using for our main living space right now, i eked out a little square to lay down a cotton rug for ripening peaches under newspaper. most of these will be for the table, but if they all ripen at once, i may end up freezing some.
yes, it’s that time of summer when the harvest is an unstoppable tide and it’s all we can do to keep up with it. that said, it’s important to make sure you know what you’re doing; preserving food has wonderful benefits but only if you use best practices. as an ever-evolving science, the rules of food preservation change and so should our knowledge about the topic, if for no other reason than that food itself is constantly evolving too.
it never hurts to know more about preserving food safely and efficiently, while retaining the best flavor and texture possible. everyone can use a little help in this regard and a good book on the subject can be a valuable friend.
enter a new release from the culinary institute of america, preserving: putting up the season’s bounty
i’m sure there are many more comprehensive volumes out there on canning and preserving—big thick books that cover every eventuality. but this book has something those books don’t—it’s small size, weight, and attractive layout make it so easy to digest that i’m actually reading and using it.
why, i can pop this baby in my tote bag and take it along to beckie’s house to read to her if i want—i like that.
inside, it’s filled with all sorts of useful information that we want to know. but what i like is that it gets you thinking about the endgame before you even start gardening or buying produce.
very smart advice since the end result is only as good as the quality of the produce you have to work with.
the preparatory chapters also discuss the concept of the pantry, how much you really need to put by, and how to store preserved goods properly. all good advice for laying a good foundation.
because let’s face it—putting up food is a labor intensive job, often hot and messy and somewhat pricey; maybe even more costly than average store-bought brands. the big payoff is a healthier, better tasting product of known origin; important enough for many of us to pursue despite the cost. the least we can do to pay ourselves back by treating the final results like the treasured goods they are.
the middle chapters of the book focus on various preservation methods, each having its own pages in the spotlight. for each, the authors discuss tools and terminology, introducing basic methodology and defining the terms you need to know.
this is where, as a beginner or someone who has limited space to work, you can choose the tools and strategies that will work best for you. for instance, one of the reasons i have yet to pursue canning, is that for so many years i lived in city apartments with no space to store big pots and boxes of jars that i would use but one month per year—or to store rows of finished canned goods either. i took to freezing because it was quick and easy after a long day of work and ziploc bags took up much less space when not in use.
however, freezing is not the best method for every food and it does require quite a bit of freezer space. i know i should explore canning for certain types of food and one of these summers, i will. i’ll probably get beckie to walk me through canning at some point; just not right now.
still, i love to read about it and doing so may spur me to try it on some level, sooner rather than later.
of course there is a chapter on pickling, along with drying, smoking, and freezing.
you’ll probably find it amusing that even though we don’t cook meat here, i still think it would be awesome to make my own bacon if i did include that in my diet.
i mean, it’s GOTTA be a far cry from what you’d buy in the cooler at the supermarket, right?
even as we work away at freezing fruits and vegetables, beckie and i come up with questions we need answered. it’s always nice to read more about a method i use all the time—why not? one thing i do know is that i don’t know everything about anything.
safe food storage is a topic that totally deserves to be revisited on a regular basis—scientists are finding out new information all the time and updating old, long-held beliefs about the “right way” to handle food.
finally, the book ends with a chapter on homemade pantry staples such as ketchup and other condiments, with advice on filling up that pantry you prepared at the start of the season. it’s nice that they circled back to the beginning i think; it makes me feel that it’s in keeping with the growing cycle of the garden.
here the authors discuss how to clean and assess your jars and equipment as you empty and put them away during the winter—when to get rid of pieces that won’t be useful in the future, how to keep an eye on the shelf life of preserved goods, and how to keep the pantry clean and free of pests. a lot of information for such a small volume.
doesn’t that sound like a terrific little book? wouldn’t you like to own one? well as luck would have it, our friend nathalie who is the director of publications at CIA (and an awesome knitter), has very generously offered us two giveaway copies of preserving!
here’s how it’s going to work: we’re going to give away one copy here on the blog and one copy on our knitspot facebook page. erica will mastermind how the FB giveaway will work and announce it there. the cool thing is that you can throw your name in the hat in both places for two chances to win (though we will award only ONE book per winner).
to be included in the blog giveaway, leave a comment at the end of this post by 9 pm ESDT on sunday august 24th, telling us what favorite summer food you are preserving (or wish you could). we’ll pick a winner and announce it early next week.
a big thank you to nathalie for giving us an advance peek inside the preserving book and providing giveaway copies for a late summer treat.
195 thoughts on “pickled pink”
My favorite thing to preserve is zucchini in the form of marmalade. Simple to make and it tastes amazing!
I found a blackberry patch in the country and plan on picking some to make blackberry jam. Yum!
Me me me me me!!!! I want a copy of that book!
I would love a copy of this book!!
I haven’t done much preserving but would like to learn. I did pick and freeze blueberries this year.
I made a batch of strawberry lemonade concentrate which was the last thing I preserved in my kitchen prior to moving out and it will be the only project for this summer since we are temporarily between homes!
The saddest part of living in New York City for me is not being able to preserve foods. I miss the amazing apple sauce and dilly beans I used to put up every year.
And yet, I actually have the space to be able to store jars — an entire empty cabinet in my kitchen — and to store preserves — an enormous pantry. And there are beautiful “pick your own” places in the Hudson Valley and Long Island that aren’t too far for an adventure. You’re giving me ideas, Anne — and so is this book! Thank you for the thorough review, and for getting my mental wheels moving.
Tomatoes, tomatoes, and more tomatoes! My home canned tomatoes were wonderful. No garden this year, but it will be redone for next and I’ll be canning them again.
Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes. I love homegrown tomatoes so I plant them in my flower beds and reap the rewards by freezing the overflow for winter soups.
I’ve been canning green beans. This book looks great.
So far this year I have frozen apricots (my favorite!), plums and yesterday made 6 pints of bread & butter pickles from our cucumbers. This book looks like it would be a great addition to my canning/preserving library. Hope I win!
We have great farm markets and I am enjoying making some jams and pickles….next will be bread and butter pickles. Looks like a wonderful book crammed with lots of info. Thanks for chance ,happy knitting and preserving.
I love rhubarb, but I always eat it all fresh, so there is nothing left to can. I’d love to have enough to can something, but it is to tasty not to eat! One year I did a tiny batch of strawberry-rhubarb jam and it was amazing.
Just finished freezing (and eating) a bushel of Red Haven peaches. Yum!
Peaches!
I would love to learn more about preserving food! I don’t much now, but I would love to save my own fruit and tomatoes.
We never grow enough tomatoes to satisfy our desire to eat them and then also have enough left for canning and ketchup making. I’d love to have our homegrown tomatoes year round!
Thanks for the chance at the book — I too love reading about food and food science 🙂
So far I’ve canned dill pickles . I have a dehydrator and have dried tomatoes and figs.
Tomatoes, any time. And all the summer berries but I don’t think canning would be the best method. Here in Quebec we have the wonderful berries from l’île d’Orléans, and the wonderful blueberries at the end of summer that you can pick yourself in a number of farms. Would love to win this book, it looks very interesting indeed. Thanks a lot for your detailed presentation and summary.
Every morning, we have homemade preserves from our own fruit on toast. The most recent to go on the shelf is plum, but it looks like quince may be the next one to head for the kettle.
The cool summer has really slowed the tomatoes. Usually we’re freezing them by now.
I will be freezing my next batch of peaches so that we can enjoy fresh peach cobblers all winter.
This would be a fabulous resource for a newbie canner (me). I’m trying jam this year but would love to expand beyond that. Thanks for offering this!
My favourites are berries – strawberries, blueberries (Nova Scotia blueberries are the very best) and blackberries – but I seldom freeze them. I would like to learn to do this properly as well as peaches. I also would like to learn to can tomatoes. I love sauces in the winter time. Hoping my name is chosen. Thank you for the opportunity.
i’d love to be able to preserve tomatoes and green beans.
My favorite this season has to be the cucumbers I made (and canned!) into my Great Aunt’s long standing family recipe. It is a 10 day process using a fermenting crock and a lot of pickling spice, but they are just the best. Worth the work.
I started gardening 5 years ago. Every year we add more and more gardening space. We learn something new with every growing season and each season has created a larger harvest for our family. This fun hobby has now evolved into food preservation in the form of canning and freezing. This year my favorite food to preserve has been tomatoes. I can’t find San Marzano tomatoes at my local grocery store so I chose to grow them myself. The new preservation book you mentioned sounds amazing!
My favorite is my husband’s Dilly Beans with garlic – NUMMY!!!
I would like to learn how to can tomatoes too!
pickles! but I’d love to branch out….
I thought I had a favorite (grin) but this is our 3rd year without a garden nor access to affordable farm fresh produce – so all if it is my favorite! (Grin) Jams, jellies, apple sauce, apple butter, pie filling, marinara sauce, dried sun gold tomatoes. All of those would vie for the top of my favorite list!
Bacon – hmm – that could be the hook for my husband (grin).
would love to preserve peaches and tomatoes! I’ve been interested in canning for awhile (though not sure why) but haven’t braved it yet. The book looks really interesting!
When I had a big garden I used to do a lot more preserving, but after a decade with only a tiny plot I’m way out of practice. Last year I started to pick it up again. My favorite things so far are applesauce (sometimes with pears for variety) and peaches. I adore summer peaches. Last year’s greatest success was a peach mango habanero sauce–mmmm! Would love to learn more for when my garden gets bigger 🙂
Tomatoes – blanched, peeled, seeded, chopped, vacuum-sealed, and frozen. I have not gotten along well with canning in the past – this book sounds like a perfect motivator to try again!!
At the moment I am freezing an abundance of okra. This year has been a great year for pickles. We’ve pickled carrots, green beans, beets and turnips. We’ve also made a killer hot pepper relish.
Salsa from my tomatoes and peppers, but both crops were crap this year, so not enough to can anything. I still have some from last year, so I’ll have to make it stretch until next year.
I have strawberries in the freezer. I have tried making jam in the past, but it never set up for me. But it was still good over ice cream! To me the vegetable that screams summer is a good home grown red tomato. The grocery store tomatoes are just sad. Unfortunately, I’ve not had a good crop this year. 🙁
I usually make some jelly, but not this year. It has been a weird summer season and I haven’t gotten the fruit that I normally find. I also like to make pickled squash every summer. It is great in the winter as reminder of what we have in abundance in the summer.
Blueberries & peaches! I love popping open a can of peaches in the middle of winter. Yum…
Green beans waiting to be blanched and put up in freezer bags for meals this winter. Thanks for the contest.
I would love to preserve all the yummy berries available in Oregon in the summer to cheer up those dismal grey winter days I know are coming. I live in an apartment with a small frig/freezer and small kitchen with limited storage space, so I’d love to learn how to maximize what I can store. Right now I just freeze a few pints of berries in ziplocks.
I was looking at this book just the other day in the our local bookstore and am so thrilled you have this in your giveaway contest! SC and Georgia peaches, East TN blueberries and the 15 bushels of early Kieffer pears I picked last week and the tree is still full of them. This year I am putting up jams and jellies as the weather here has been so weird for tomatoes.
my favorite things to preserve are all the berries we get here in Oregon. I freeze most, but also make jam. In fact, on my to-do list for today, is to assess my freezer contents as I am going to get some Hatch chili’s to freeze up..
Jam, plum if possible, this year, we picked berries from the coast. Easy to freeze. I do need to learn more about taking care when preserving.
Pickles, jam, jelly. Yum they’re all good. We do lots of freezing too!
What a fabulous sounding book!!!! I’ve haven’t made jam in awhile, but this might just get me back into it.
This year I was given a crop of red and yellow cherries. I was away from home so did the only thing I could think of at the time (after making cherry crumble, cherry clafoutis and eating them raw. I preserved them in alcohol. The French supermarket sold “alcohol pour fruit” which was found to be vodka and I also used gin. 10 Kilner jars later…I hope to use them as Christmas gifts.
I love canning, would love a copy of this lovely book.
what a great book! I will be making crabapple jelly this weekend!
Great book! I’ve added it to my wish list.
Not much of a gardener, but I do pick the wild berries growing on the property and freeze them. I luv them atop pancakes, French toast or in coffee cakes!
Mahalo.
I am currently buried under an avalanche of beans and a tsunami of tomatoes to freeze and can, so I definitely need this terrific book! I love that it covers planning, pantry storage, and things I’ve wanted to try – like bacon!
My mom and I just canned some Roma tomatoes. . .tomatoes are definitely my favorite thing to have fresh from my own canning. I would also love to try to make some Dilly beans this season!
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