Preservation Link Roundup 8/17/10

Yes, Another Cooking Blog cans tomato halves for the Can Jam (Tomato halves for Can Jam-August). Why halves? Much less floating. Floating doesn't affect flavor, but isn't an aesthetically pleasing.

But that's not all - how about a basic tomato sauce? Basic Tomato Sauce for August Can Jam

Bread Experience makes a non-basic tomato sauce (Roasted Vegetable Pasta Sauce: Tigress Can Jam).

Plate to Plate goes through some tomato canning basics (Canning Tomatoes). For more advanced tomato canning you can check out this post from Well Preserved (A Guide to our best Tomato Preserving (Canning) Posts).

If you need more hands on information, how about a class from my fellow Master Food Preserver Delilah Snell and the famous Evan Kleinman? The class is $100 and takes place September 11th (Tomato Canning Class: Mucho Mas with Evan Kleinman). I'll be doing a demo on the 29th.

I talked about pesto and basil yesterday, and today Road to the Farm has a lovely photo of some pesto she has put in canning jars for freezing (Oh, Pesto!).

Simply Daily Recipes reviews one of the newer canning books, Put 'Em Up (Put 'Em Up Book Review). As a beginning canner, she liked it. I've got a copy myself and will provide my opinion when I have time to play with it a bit.

Speaking of new preserving books, Doris and Jilly Cook are doing a giveaway of another new one (Giveaway: The Fresh Girl's Guide to Easy Canning and Preserving).

And, speaking of giveaways, Food in Jars is giving away vanilla beans to three lucky winners, but everyone gets her recipe for peach sauce with vanilla - or follow the alternative directions to make peach butter (better than apple butter in my book) (White Peach Sauce with Vanilla (+ giveaway!)). There are some really great notes on acidification of white peaches, since they have borderline acidity.

Of course, vanilla is good, but why not some rum in that peach sauce? Local Kitchen makes a peach sauce with Kraken Rum (Pirate Peaches). Love the labels too. Wish she'd post the file.

Simply Recipes is on a frozen yogurt kick (Blackberry Frozen Yogurt). And why not? If you make yogurt on a regular basis (which you should) why not toss some of that yogurt (along with some flavorings and some sweetener) into an ice cream churn? It's a lot easier than making a French-style ice cream and the sweet/tart flavor is fantastic. Doesn't have to be dessert either, why not frozen yogurt as an intermezzo?

For more information on frozen yogurt, The Kitchn collects a number of recipes in an attempt at answering a question about making creamy frozen yogurt (How Do I Make Creamy, Low-Fat Frozen Yogurt at Home?).

Since I make my own kombucha at home I didn't realize that they've stopped carrying it many stores. The Kitchn asks whether you're getting your fix of kombucha now (The Great Kombucha Freakout: Are You Getting Your Fix?). My answer is yes, of course. Couldn't afford that store bought stuff in the first place. Even if I could, I'm not sure I'd want to pay so much for something that is simply tea and sugar and culture and some time.