[.ca] Blue Ribbon Preserves (ISBN 1557883610)

From Amazon.com:
If you've been laboring under the illusion that your grandmother just smashed berries into a jar or that pickles grew on exotic pickle trees, prepare to be enlightened with Linda J. Amendt's Blue Ribbon Preserves: Secrets to Award-Winning Jams, Jellies, Marmalades & More. Canning, as shown in this exhaustive edition, is as much a science as an art, and this book includes every detail to educate the uninformed on what it takes to make great preserves. Her recipes include the standards, such as strawberry jam, and the obscure, such as Garlic and Onion Jam. Amendt also does the public service of explaining the real difference between jams and jellies. Special caution about food safety holds a prominent place in Blue Ribbon Preserves and Amendt teaches us how to chose optimal foods for canning as well as how to safely store preserves to avoid potentially lethal food contamination. Be prepared for a bit of a chemistry lesson, which can be a long and sometimes didactic read, but it's well worth it for the critical food-safety information. So complete is the book that Amendt, herself a recipient of countless state-fair awards for her preserves, includes pointers on how to succeed at such competitions (in a very thorough chapter which includes insights into how judges pick their winners). Blue Ribbon Preserves covers everything that goes into a ball jar and more, and in the process earns not only a tight seal of quality but its own blue ribbon. --Teresa Simanton

Delicious!:
I purchased this book a couple of months ago and have made her Santa Rosa Plum Jam and, just today, a batch of pear preserves. Both are huge successes! Linda's methods and recipes are clear and concise. Both recipes I have tried so far are absolutely delicious - for sure, I will be making more of her recipes. These are also great for gift-giving. Highly recommended!

very well written book:
Upon reading the blue ribbon preserves, I was impress how informative the book is. I use to make jams and reading this book makes me realize what I was doing wrong and I can not wait to try everything.The recipes and the instructions are easy to follow and understand and I am glad I have this book.

My New Canning Bible!!!!:
This is the best canning book I have ever read. Thank you so much Linda Amendt. Your receipes are wonderful and your advice is very, very helpful. Bravo! Please write more books for us to buy.

Good learning info on canning and preserving:
I found the educational portion of the book to be very useful - I have just taken a canning class and have tried canning in the past with success. I was looking for basic recipes that would be straightforward, tried and tested. The first recipe I tried, though, was not a success. It was fairly simple, though labor intensive. But the Apple Butter came out more like applesauce. I researched other Apple Butter recipes and found some extreme differences in the proportion of ingredients (apple pulp to liquid - cooking time - processing temperature) that were listed in the recipe in this book. In particular the 'Ball Blue Book - Easy Guide to Tasty, Thrifty Canning and Freezing'(revised edition 29) seems to have a better handle, give more precise information, and give better hints on cooking apple butter. So, now I'm a little 'leery' about how other recipes in this book will pan out.

A must for those doing any type of preserving:
I found this book browsing at the library and now I've got it on my Christmas wish book. It gives great explanations and has many recipes not only for current cooking such as Asian marinades but old standbys which my mother has done. It's definitely one for your collection.