The Busy Person's Guide to Preserving Food: Easy Step-by-Step Instructions for Freezing, Drying, and Canning [Hardcover]

Janet Chadwick (Author), Elayne Sears (Illustrator)

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The Updated and Expanded Edition of Garden Way Publishing's Classic Guide

Discover the fast, easy way to save and preserve fresh and healthy fruits, vegetables, and herbs with this indispensable guide. The Busy Person's Guide to Preserving Food is packed with time-saving tips and advice for freezing, canning, cold storage, and drying. Here is the most up-to-date information on preserving food in the shortest amount of time right at your fingertips.

The Busy Person's Guide to Preserving Food includes:

* Step-by-step instructions and how-to illustrations for preserving today's most popular fruits and vegetables quickly and easily

* Quick tips and shortcuts for saving time while canning

* Instructions for alternative preserving methods including freezer bags, easy-to-make ice packs, and root cellaring

* Practical charts for determining yield and blanching time

* A review of equipment and appliances essential to fast home preservation

* Recipes for harvest dinners, salsas, herbal vinegars, pestos, jellies, and teas

Plus, you get simple explanations and solutions for the most common "what-went-wrong" questions. A must-have guide for today's busy cook and gardener.

About the Author

The author of several cooking and gardening books, Janet Chadwick has been growing and preserving food for years. Chadwick says, "There is no way you can 'buy' the feeling of pride you have when you show off the full freezer; the rows of canned vegetables, fruits, pickles, jams, jellies; or the root cellar shelves filled to the ceiling!" She is the author of Storey's The Busy Person's Guide to Preserving Food. Janet lives in Hinesburg, Vermont, where she has been growing and preserving food for years.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 212 pages
• Publisher: Storey Publishing; Revised edition (January 8, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0882669001
• ISBN-13: 978-0882669007
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #401,386 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 50 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Practical and Simple Guidebook for Preserving Food August 15, 2000

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

I used to feel intimidated about preserving fresh vegetables. I thought all sorts of expensive equipment and a vast knowledge of preserving were needed in order to successfully preserve food. Then I purchased a copy of The Busy Person's Guide to Preserving Food and was delighted to find that I could almost effortlessly preserve many of the fresh vegetables I grew and still have good results with the finished product. Now, I look forward to a healthy crop of green beans, yellow squash, zucchini, and tomatoes and no longer wonder what I'll do with all of the produce.

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Teriffic book for a beginner! December 21, 2000

By "simmoncn"

Format:Hardcover

I used this book when i was just starting to learn how to can, and it was a savior. Provides detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to can, freezer, and dry store. Also contains great basic receipes to get you started.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent resource even for beginners June 15, 2008

By Jennifer

Format:Hardcover

The Busy Person's Guide to Preserving Food: Easy Step-by-Step Instructions for Freezing, Drying and Canning is an excellent resource if you need help learning how to preserve food. It gives the preferred preservation method for all different types of fruits and vegetables then also gives alternate methods for each as well. You can definitely preserve produce you buy locally as well as produce you grow using the methods in this book even if you have never done so before.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent resource December 29, 2008

By Jessica Niebylski

Format:Hardcover

This is an excellent all-around book for home preserving: root cellaring, canning, freezing and dehydrating. Plenty of recipes and I like how the author rated the final product. For instance, freezing strawberries yields a better end product than canning them. It helps the beginner determine the best way to preserve each fruit or vegetable.

23 of 31 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book March 28, 2000

By Cindy

Format:Hardcover

This is an easy book to follow. I've never canned before and this book made it easy. The results were good also.

18 of 24 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Great book, but cooking in plastic? yuck! August 1, 2008

By a sewing mama

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book is full of great info, giving different preserving options for the veggies and fruits most frequently harvested by home gardeners.

But if you, like our family, prefer to NOT cook food, especially your organically grown veggies, in plastic "boiling" bags, then you might find some of the advice as frustrating as I did.

Overall, a great starting point, but I'm going to look elsewhere for canning and freezing advice.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Busy Person Guide to Preserving Food August 28, 2008

By Janice M. Robert

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I ordered serval books about preserving food and this one was the best. Easy to read and a good starter book for preserving vegtables and herbs.
This is our third year tiling our garden and the most abundant.

Gardening in Massachusetts

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars good for beginner October 1, 2012

By K. Bisick

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

If I was rating this for myself I would give it 1 star and returned it if I bought it local. I purchased this book because I read that it teaches you canning methods for small quantities of food instead of the way I do it now, bushels that take all day to process. Basically it tells you to seal it in a bag and freeze it. It's not a complete waste and I will most likely give it to someone who is new to preserving food but for me I dont see anything that I dont already know.