Summer in a Jar: Making Pickles, Jams and More Review

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(More customer reviews)An innovative idea drives this book, since canning single-jar and small-quantity preserves or pickles is a great way to keep up with a small garden's produce. The chapter called "Single Jar Pickles" contains 27 recipes for preserving a wide variety of vegetables in hot vinegar. The "Salt-Brined Pickles" chapter outlines ...well, pickling in salt brine, of course. The "Relishes and Chutneys" chapter and the section on "Quick and Easy Freezer Pickles" also cater to the home gardener who wishes to put up small harvests without much fuss. A couple of recipes for baked fruit butters eliminate much of the mess and fuss (and second-degree burns!) associated with open-kettle preparation. :) If you are interested in these topics, then by all means give this book a try. HOWEVER...if you intend to concoct jams, jellies, marmalades, preserves or conserves, you may want to seek another source. The low-sugar, no-pectin-added fruit preserves taste less like premium home-made jam than like barely sweetened mashed fruit. Leaving out commercial pectin, and cutting WAY down on sugar, necessitates steps like these: long boiling times (10-30 minutes versus 1 minute with added pectin); use of a jelly thermometer or other lower-tech method to test for gel stage; and an addition of diced tart apples to nearly all jams and jellies. Since the rest of the book is filled with recipies modified for modern needs, it seems anachronistic to revert to this older, messier, less convenient form of jelly-making. IF YOU NEED LOW-SUGAR JAM recipes for health reasons, this is your book. If you want soft-spreading fruit with a barely sweetened flavor, use Summer in a Jar. IF ALL YOU WANT IS SWEET, EASY, REGULAR OL' JAM, get another source--like the Ball Blue Book.

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