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Batch Cookbook Blog Hop & GIVEAWAY


This is the time of year I start dreaming up preserving plans for the sunny months ahead. What do I want to preserve? How many pounds of tomatoes, peaches and cucumbers do I want to can this year? What will I grow, and what will I buy? Preserving can be done year-round, and I do put up jars of this and that when the mood strikes, but I like starting the growing season with shelves that are starting to get bare. They are not empty shelves to me. They are space for a fresh start.

I sat with my bare feet in the grass this Mother's Day, the sun shining hotly on my head, and did some daydreaming. No need for a spreadsheet or a checklist. Nothing set so firmly that it can't be undreamed. Just ideas and intentions.

Just in time for planning summer preserving comes along a new cookbook from the folks at the Toronto-based food blog Well Preserved. Joel MacCharles and Dana Harrison's beautiful book Batch: Over 200 Recipes, Tips & Techniques For a Well Preserved Kitchen from Appetite by Random House is in stores now. It has loads of ideas for canning fans, but you'll also find recipes for other types of preserving, such as dehydrating, fermenting, cellaring, salting, smoking and infusing. I have my eye on the mushrooms section and the instructions for making mushroom powder.

With a wide range of preserving options for an equally wide range of preservable foods, Batch is a thorough resource that is sure to please experienced preservers. But with its simple language and helpful illustrations, there is still plenty to love for the new preserver. 

Start with the quick recipes like Salt-Preserved Lemons and Limes (salting) and Strawberry Ginger Leather (dehydrating), then work your way up to recipes with more steps like Cherry Ginger Beer (fermenting) and making your own bacon (salt and smoke). If you love the way food and science combine to make magic in the kitchen, you'll have fun casting spells within the pages of Batch.

I'm joining forces with some other Canadian food bloggers this week in celebration of the launch of Batch and giving readers a chance to win a copy for their own kitchen. We've all made something different from the book, and I chose Quick Pickled Grapes (page 219). I love me some sweet and sour flavours, so these halved grapes and lemon slices tucked inside a jar and topped with a simple brine of wine vinegar and honey is a winner. So far we've enjoyed them with seared pork chops and in salads. Yum.

Scroll down and enter to WIN a copy of Batch, and visit the other bloggers involved in the Blog Hop to enter their giveaways too...

Batch by Joel MacCharles & Dana Harrison, published by Appetite by Penguin Random House Canada. Author image credit: Margaret Mulligan.





Here are the other Canadian food bloggers participating in the Batch blog hop this week:

MONDAY
Getty at GettyStewart.com
Mardi at eat. live. travel. write.

TUESDAY
Jan at Family Bites
Kelly at KellyNeil.com 

WEDNESDAY
Me!

THURSDAY
Valeria at A Canadian Foodie
Isabelle at Crumb

FRIDAY
RenĂ©e at sweetsugarbean
Food Bloggers of Canada

ENTER TO WIN RIGHT HERE ON FAMILY FEEDBAG!
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Canadian residents only.
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