Now, don’t go thinking, “I’ve never canned anything so I wouldn’t know what to do with this book.” Marisa spends the first few pages of the book explaining the tools needed (not as many as you’d think), the whys of processing food, and, most importantly, how to process. And, since her book is dedicated to small batches, the whole thing is very manageable. Dare I say, if you’re only making three or four jars of something, you could even skip the hot water bath if you keep your finished jars in the refrigerator and eat everything up before it spoils. But, I think this book might just inspire people who have never canned (who me?) to finally boil some water on the stove top and plunk a few jars in.

I interviewed Marisa for my Mother Nature Network blog, and she told me this about the recipes she includes in “Food in Jars.”

For this book, I wanted to create recipes that produced yields for a modern home. So I built these recipes to yield just three or four pints. Smaller batches means less chopping, peeling and mashing, less cooking down vast cauldrons of jam and far less time in the kitchen. Sticking to small batches takes a great deal of the tedium out of canning and helps make it simply fun and satisfying.

Modern homes… small batches… less tedium in the canning process… Yep, this is the book for us modern foodies who want to spend some time in the kitchen making good, real food, but not all our time in the kitchen. C’mon, you know you want “Food in Jars.” Here’s how you can win a copy.

• Go to Marisa’s Food in Jars blog and find a recipe that looks like something you’d like to make (it may or may not be in the cookbook – that doesn’t matter). Then come back here and leave a comment about what recipe appeals to you with a link back to it.
• You can increase your chances of winning by tweeting these exact words from your Twitter account:
  @rshreeves is giving away a copy of @marusula ‘s new small-batch canning cookbook “Food in Jars.” http://bit.ly/LSaJEF #giveaway
  Then coming back here to South Jersey Locavore and leaving a link to the tweet.
• Only two entries per person.

The other big thing this weekend is, of course, Mother’s Day. Wish me luck as I’m hunting down a low-potassium, low-sodium treat to bake for my mom. She’s recently been put on a restricted diet, and I want to make her something really delicious that, you know, won’t kill her.

On to the odds and ends.

• New Jersey Monthly has a piece on one of the local foods I don’t talk too much about here on SJL, our seafood. (I’ll have to correct that – especially since there is now a seafood vendor at the Collingswood Farmers Market.) The piece’s teaser line says it very well, “For quality and quantity, the ocean is one of the Garden State’s richest gardens.”
• I’m a little surprised at this, but New Jersey fell at the bottom of a study that ranked the availability of local food. The Heifers Locavore Index 2012, put us way at the bottom. Maybe I’m not surprised. While here where I am in Camden County (that has very few actual farms), there are plenty of farmers markets, in some of the counties where farms are very prevalent and income average is low, there are few farmers markets. Something we need to work on here in the Garden State, don’t you think?
• If your plans are still up in the air for the weekend, don’t forget that many of the region’s wineries are participating in the Mother’s Day Wine Trail Weekend. For participating wineries and details about what they’ll be doing special for their visitors this weekend (you don’t have to be a mom), head over to the Garden State Wine Growers Association website.
• Tickets are still available for the South Jersey Swappers event next Saturday in Vineland. I’ll be there swapping food that I’ve made, will you?
• Two local food bloggers had cookbooks published this week. I’ll be doing reviews of them on MNN in the upcoming weeks, and I’ll give you links to the reviews one they go up. But I’m so excited for them, that I wanted to tell you about their books now.
  Allyson from Manifest Vegan published “Great Gluten-Free Vegan Eats.”  The title of the book obviously explains what types of recipes it contains. I have a copy of the book on my desk right now, and I’m excited to dive into some of the recipes. One of my family members is cutting out gluten to see if it resolves some issues, and I’ve got the EasyGoing Pie Crust recipe marked to try this weekend.
  Marisa from Food in Jars published a cookbook of the same name. The recipes are for canning, preserving and putting up food. I’ve had the pleasure of trying several of her creations over the past year or so, and she really knows what she’s doing. If you’re considering canning this year, you’ll want to grab a copy of “Food in Jars.” I’m waiting impatiently for mine to arrive in the mail.
• Speaking of waiting impatiently for the mail, I’ve been running to my mail box daily like a 16-year-old looking for a letter from the boy she fell for at summer camp. (Who me? I never was like that.) What I’m waiting for is the 5th anniversary issue of Edible Jersey to arrive. If it doesn’t arrive today I just may bust. Why am I so excited? Well, I always read it from cover to cover because it’s that good, but, I’ve written a full length feature piece that will be published in this issue. I’m really psyched about getting published in such an excellent publication.

So this is me, passing on the information. If you’re a Mantua resident please take a look at Hens4Mantua’s proposal and consider signing their petition. And, if you don’t live in Mantua, but have friends or family that do, let them know about this issue.

For even more information, check out the Gloucester County Times front page article and keep track of their progress on their Facebook page.

Image: wattpublishing

The Sole is a crisp, semi-dry white, with a nice spice to it. It’s named perfectly – for the sun – because it’s definitely a warm weather wine. This wine won a gold medal at the 2012 Finger Lakes International Wine Competition, and while I don’t put too much stock in wine awards, I can see why this was a winner. I drank a little of it this Saturday afternoon while I was writing, and then served the rest of the bottle with dinner on Saturday night. It went really well with this menu:

• Grilled Chicken with White BBQ Sauce (really great chicken, btw)
• Sourdough Panzanella with Roasted Vegetables
• Roasted Asparagus

The Rosalita is a light blush wine. It’s light in color and light in sweetness. A very refreshing rose that would be great countering the spiciness of BBQ or other spicy foods. It would also be wonderful just by itself on the back deck or even the beach. I might find myself sneaking a bit of this (transferred into a non-glass bottle, of course) into the pool this summer.

I’ve never made the trip to Auburn Road Vineyard in Pilesgrove, but I’ve had several of their wines at various festivals. In addition to these two wines, I’ve enjoyed their Classico, similar to a Super Tuscan, and The White Bottle, a Chardonnay.

Have you had any of Auburn’s wines. Which ones do you enjoy?

If you haven't discovered BBC's series "Sherlock" yet, you need to check it out. The second series begins this Sunday night at 9pm on PBS. The first series (or what we here in the U.S. call season) is on Netflix.

Date night with my husband tonight (very happy about that). The Collingswood Farmers Market opens tomorrow morning. A Sunday afternoon matinee of “Night of the Iguana” at the South Camden Theatre Co. with a really good friend. BBC’s awesome series “Sherlock” starts its second series run Sunday night on PBS. This is going to be a good weekend.

I hope you have something to look forward to as we head into a weekend that will be warm and a little bit rainy (maybe a lot rainy tonight). Here a few things you might be interested in reading in between all your weekend fun.

• NJ wineries can ship to residents in and out of state. The new law took effect on May 1. Feel free to call your favorite winery and order a shipment of wine right do your front door. Press of Atlantic City said many wineries received orders before May 1, and that they would start shipping those orders this week.
• Foobooz has an interesting graph that shows just how popular farm to table restaurants are in Philadelphia. Of the past 30 big openings of restaurants in the city, you’ll be amazed to see how many of them focus on local foods.
• There’s a great piece on Westmont’s Severino Pasta on Philly.com. The family owned business has been making pasta using only all-natural ingredients for over 40 years now.
• You know asparagus is in season in our region right now. It’s a vegetable that I have tried to like, but I can’t get a taste for it. Many people, though,  live for asparagus season. Sun Herald has a piece with some information about why asparagus became mostly an import vegetable in the past couple of decades (hint: war on drugs) and why U.S. grown asparagus is becoming popular again (hint: people like us).
• If you’re looking for stuff to do this weekend that is centered around food, you need to check out Eating in South Jersey’s Eating, Drinking and Cooking in South Jersey post. As always, John & Lisa have a great round-up of events.

• Kirby Bros. Farm Market in Medford on Main St. (also known as Stokes Road) opens on May 20. The market will run on Sundays from 10am-2pm. Balic Winery, Jennings Farm Grass Fed Beef, Milk Creek Organic Farm, and Brook Berry Farm will be a few of the vendors selling at the market.
• Voorhees Farmers Market at the Voorhees Town Center (or the Echelon Mall as most of us will always call it). The market will run on Saturdays from 8am-noon. Bellview Winery, Chestnut Hill Farm (makers of the wonderful Asian Pear Wine), Dufield’s Farm, and Muth Organic Farm are a few of the vendors selling at the market.

I’m happy to see new markets opening in the area, and I’m really happy to see our wineries getting in on the farmers market action. I do wish the Voorhees market wasn’t at the same exact time as the Collingswood and Haddonfield ones, though. They are all pretty close in proximity and will be competing against each other. At least Westmont, which is in the same area, is open Wednesday evenings instead of Saturdays. And, today is opening day for the Westmont Farmers Market!

Jen interviewed me about my experiences with Philly Swappers and what she might be able to expect at her first swap.

With the South Jersey Food Swap just a few weeks away, I decided to ask fellow blogger and experienced food swapper Robin Shreeves for advice. Robin writes for Mother Nature Network, and she is the South Jersey Locavore.  She knows what she’s talking about!

You can read the rest of Jen’s interview with me and my advice for first time swappers in Interview with a food swapper.

I want to thank Jen for the opportunity to share my experiences.

May 12th is the 20th annual Stamp Out Hunger drive. Letter carriers will collect non-perishable items from your home when they deliver your mail to donate to food banks across the country. In our region, the food will go to The Food Bank of South Jersey. This year, the food bank hopes to collect 125,000 pounds of food!

Last year, my sons and I, along with a group of youth from a church, helped to sort through a lot of the food that was donated to The Food Bank of South Jersey during the 2011 drive. Our job was to check the expiration dates on the boxes, cans and packages. The boxes that the donated food had been put into were so large and deep that when they got down to a certain level, we would put my boys in the boxes to get the food at the bottom. They’d check the expiration date on each package, then hand it to the older youth who would put it in the correct bin. We had a lot of fun that day. That’s my oldest son inside the box in the photo above. You can see how deep the box is by how high it comes up on him.

You should be receiving something in your mailbox soon reminding you of the Stamp Out Hunger drive. Make sure you set a few cans and packages of non-perishable food aside (that haven’t reached their expiration date yet) to help the food bank reach their goal of collecting 125,000 pounds of food to help feed those in need right here in our region. Thanks!

]]> http://www.southjerseylocavore.com/2012/04/get-ready-to-stamp-out-hunger.html/feed 0 http://www.southjerseylocavore.com/2012/04/locavore-odds-and-ends-its-almost-farmers-market-time.html http://www.southjerseylocavore.com/2012/04/locavore-odds-and-ends-its-almost-farmers-market-time.html#comments Fri, 27 Apr 2012 18:12:38 +0000 robin http://www.southjerseylocavore.com/?p=2541 One week from tomorrow, I’ll be skipping through the Collingswood Farmers Market. Maybe not literally skipping, but my heart will be skipping. Opening day is one of my favorite days of the year. Before Collingswood, though, the Westmont Farmers Market will have its opening day on Wednesday, May 2. We’ve got a Little League game that night, so chances are I won’t have the chance to make it to Westmont, but I’m sure some of you will be heading there for opening day.

This weekend, I’ll be hitting up the Audubon Town Wide Yard Sale, working in my garden, and hanging with my men. While I’m doing that, you can take a look at these items of interest.

• WHYY’s Newsworks has a piece about the new South Jersey Swappers group that I told you about the other week. Lauren Vitagliano, the group’s organizer, is interviewed about why she started the group and what she hopes it accomplishes. I already have my ticket to the first swap on May 19. Will I be seeing you there?
• If you’re deciding which tomatoes to plant in your garden this season, Philly.com taste tests several varieties of heirloom, patio/container, and cherry/grape tomatoes. Their results might help you choose what to plant.
• Duffield’s posted the most wonderful words on their Facebook page today, “Lots of Strawberries, now in the market!!! We now have flats too!”
• Farmers in Cape May County are cultivating beach plumbs. Press of Atlantic City calls them a “high-value niche crops that can supply limited markets.”
• Did you know New Jersey is the birthplace of the Mason Jar? The New York Times has the information on the man and his invention that sparked a revolution in home canning.
• Six Collingswood restaurants will be participating in a Farm-to-Fork-to-Farm composting program. New Jersey Newsroom reports that Bistro DiMarino, Casona, DiBartolo Bakery, El Sitio Grill & Café, Sapori, and Villa Barone will be working with Organic Diversion to have their food waste composted.
• Finally, the South Jersey Locavore Facebook page got its 200th follower this week! If haven’t you “liked” the page yet, pop over there right now.

Image: Market Manager/flickr