The Complete Book of Year-Round Small-Batch Preserving: Over 300 Delicious Recipes [Paperback]

Ellie Topp (Author), Margaret Howard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 5, 2005

"Takes the pressure off cooks who don't have the time... but still want to savor the season's bounty."
-- Chicago Tribune

Few people have time for large preserving marathons that can take all day or more. The recipes in this book allow you to put up a few jars quickly and easily of whatever is fresh and available, with a minimum of time and fuss.

Inside The Complete Book of Year-Round Small-Batch Preserving are recipes for delicious jams, jellies and marmalades with mouth-watering names like Sour Cherry Gooseberry Jam, Cherry Orange Freezer Jam, Microwave Winter Pear Lemon Jelly, Blueberry Freezer Jam with Cointreau, Mango Marmalade Amaretto Jam and Raspberry and Blueberry Jam.

But there's much more than just sweet spreads here. You'll find wonderful butters (Cranberry Maple Butter), unusual pickles (fire-roasted Sweet Red Peppers), piquant sauces (Asian Whiskey Sauce), sassy salsas (Peach Mint Salsa), and choice chutneys (Hellfire Chutney). There is also a dazzling array of curds, conserves, relishes, dips, pestos, specialty vinegars and oils and sweet low-sugar spreads. Recipes for microwave and freezer jams, and recipes kids will enjoy making round out this must-have addition to your cookbook shelf.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In The Complete Book of Year-Round Small-Batch Preserving: Over 300 Delicious Recipes, Ellie Topp (Feasts for Families) and Margaret Howard (coauthor, All Fired Up!), both home economists, explain the canning process for jellies, jams, marmalades, conserves, relishes, salsas, chutneys, pickles, dessert sauces, fruit butter, vinegars, mincemeats and curds and then reel off uses for them. Many of the delicacies this book proposes are surprisingly sophisticated (Jalape¤o Mint Jelly, Pink Peppercorn Vinegar) while others are more tongue-in-cheek: Hellfire Chutney and Mixed Japanese Pickle Sticks.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

With the fall publishing season comes a torrent of new cookbooks to take advantage of the harvest season's bumper crops. Not everyone has a root cellar or capacious larder to store large numbers of bulky canning jars. Nevertheless, even the most confined cook finds it worthwhile to put up a few cans of summer's peak fruits and vegetables. Avoiding recipes that call for quantities on the scale of pecks and bushels, Ellie Topp and Margaret Howard offer The Complete Book of Year-Round Small-Batch Preserving. Their more than 300 different recipes yield three or four jars of jams, chutneys, conserves, and pickles. Recipes for the freezer, for candied fruit, and for low-sugar preserves round out this useful comprehensive guide sensitive to contemporary eating habits. Food fashions come and go, but interest in vegetarianism continues to attract people for a host of reasons nutritional, religious, and moral. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Firefly Books (February 5, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1552094898
• ISBN-13: 978-1552094891
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (97 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,193,898 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

155 of 164 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Canning Recipes May 20, 2008

By G. Barnes

Format:Paperback

This book is a great idea but not very well executed. The recipes are smaller which is nice but I was disappointed that many of them are supposed to be stored in the refrigerator. That's leftovers NOT food preservation. There are several better books out there--The new Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving is absolutely the best and most reliable book and has many small batch recipes included. If you can find copies of Sunset Home Canning (1993), The Food Lover's Guide to Canning (1997) or Canning by Sue and Bill Deeming (1983) you will have a wealth of reliable, creative canning recipes.

64 of 65 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, but maybe not for a beginner March 10, 2003

By L. Allen

Format:Paperback

This is an outstanding source of recipes for people who want to experiment with preserving and making their own condiments. I disagree that it's not a true "preserving" cookbook, but I will say this: if you are looking for a book with 500+ "canning" recipes this may not be your book. Also, I would caution those without a lot of preserving (or canning, for that matter) experience; the recipes work, but the cook needs to be comfortable with processing, etc. becasue the authors don't provide a lot of detailled instruction on it. It's very intimidating to work with hot jam, glass, boiling water, etc. if you've never done it before. This book provides the user with a good overview on how to process, but nothing too detailed. Also, they don't stress enough that users shouldn't alter recipes. If a recipe calls, for example, for whole strawberries, and the user slices them in half, the user will end up with more liquid than what the amount of pectin specified in the recipe will gel. So, you end up with a really good ice cream topping instead of jam! Oh well, try again!

73 of 76 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars I LOVE THIS BOOK September 23, 2008

By A. Reader

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I checked this out from the library rather than ordering it initially because of the mixed reviews. I have loved it so much I kept renewing and finally had to order a copy because I couldn't bear to part with it. This weekend I made the blueberry spiced honey jam and it is FABULOUS! Same for the red onion relish, the jalapeno mint jelly, the pasta sauce....everything I've tried has been a hit. There's an Indonesian Satay Sauce that I'll be making as soon as my own book shows up. I haven't even gotten to the section on freezing!

Quantities are small, but it's simple to double or triple a favorite recipe. One of my favorite parts of the book is the final chapter which has recipes for using some of the more unusual items.

If you're looking for traditional canning recipes, there are probably better books out there, but if you're looking for the unusual in quantities that are manageable, this is a great book!!!

One other thing you may wish to know: all the canning recipes are for water-bath canning, so you won't be disappointed to find out that all the recipes you want to make call for a pressure canner.

55 of 59 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Not 300 recipes for "preserving"! August 2, 2002

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

I was disappointed to find that many recipes in this book are not for preserving at all -- one whole chapter was for items that must be stored in the refrigerator and used within a few weeks (some a lot less, such as 1 day! How is that preserving??). They might be good recipes, but that's not what I was looking for in purchasing the book. The recipes that really are for canning (or other means of preservation) look fine, but not much different than you find in other books. This would probably make more sense as a regular cookbook with a few chapters devoted to preserving. If you're looking for a lot of recipes for preserving, buy something else.

38 of 40 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't listen to negatives April 19, 2008

By pms press

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I've been canning for years. Yes, some of the recipes you definitely have to use your head (like the strawberry one). I've made over half of the recipes in the book and liked them all. Those that weren't entirely what I expected--they just got named something else. If you want to try your hand at preserving and don't want bushels of stuff in your kitchen--get this book!

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but could use a little work. November 4, 2002

By Beth

Format:Paperback

I have made several recipes from this book, and so far, all of them have turned out very nicely (the brandied cranberry conserve is excellent). I do agree with the above reviewer that many of the recipes in the book are meant to be kept in the refrigerator, and are not really "preserving". When I preserve something, it's so I can get it OUT of my fridge or freezer. I love the unusual combinations and the variety of recipes, though some of them could be written a bit more clearly. For example, one recipe says to use one orange, while another calls for one orange, peeled and seeded, and another call for an orange, unpeeled. So, is the orange in the first recipe meant to be used with the peel or not? I also wish that the recipes all made at least two jarfuls (so I can have one jar to eat and one to save or give away), and that the instructions for processing matched up with the amount made (the roasted vegetable pasta sauce makes 3 1/2 cups and has instructions for processing quart jars).

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Resource; Much Better Than The Newcomers July 22, 2009

By K. Patten

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I love this book. I have had it for several years now and have used many recipes from it. The recent upswing in the trendiness of preserving has created a deluge of books on the subject. Their general lack of quality has made me realize just what a fabulous resource this is and has compelled me to write this review. This book has hundreds of recipes, and, sure, I was initially disappointed that a couple of sections were devoted to "preserving" things in the refrigerator or freezer, but most of the recipes are traditional water-bath canning recipes. Additionally, the newer books I've seen on the subject (of small-batch preserving) lack recipes in general and have a much higher proportion of "preserving" things in the fridge or freezer than this does. I would generally have deducted a star for the freezer and refrigerator recipes, but after having used this for several years, I have found that the breadth and quality of the recipes makes up for it.