Lisa Messinger's
Cookbooks of the Week

The Complete Book of Year-Round Small-Batch Preserving: Over 300 Delicious Recipes

by Ellie Topp and Margaret Howard (Firefly)

If you picture preserving as a big-batch, one-fruit, single-season kind of activity (let's say enough strawberry jam jarred in the summer to feed a small army), Ellie Topp and Margaret Howard want to revolutionize your repertoire. They are gourmets who specialize in boutique batches that make a splash all year long. How about a few teaspoons of sour cherry hazelnut conserve that's flavored with dry white wine on your English muffin? The next day feel like toast with tangerine grapefruit marmalade instead? No problem—you can easily have whipped up a few cups of each. Same with festively flavorful pink peppercorn vinegar, herbed raspberry-red currant sauce, mango ketchup, sun-dried tomato mustard or hundreds of other recipes. An additional nice touch: The authors include lots of big-picture recipes that can be made with their unique preserved goods, such as a snazzy peach-banana shake that includes their spiced wine peach jam and corn chowder that relies on their zesty country corn relish.

RECIPE: SUN-DRIED TOMATO MUSTARD