Meals in a Jar: Quick and Easy, Just-Add-Water, Homemade Recipes by Julie Languille was recommended to me by a friend so I decided to see what it is like.
First of all, the title is a little deceptive in that it implies that the entire meal is in one jar. That isn’t quite true for all the recipes. Often the jar is just part of the gathered meal ingredients. Ready-Made Meals, the phrase more often used in the book, would probably be a more appropriate title.
Ready-Made Meals include pressure-canned meals, dry ingredient meals, and meals that are a combination of canned and dry but packaged together. These recipes are not meant for long-term storage. These are shelf stable convenience foods for the short term (about 1 year).
Most of the home canning emphasis in this book is on pressure canning. The author emphasizes proper procedures and recommends verifying current guidelines. This is good advice because not all the information she provides about canning is correct and it’s not because anything has changed since she wrote it. Here are some details that are incorrect:
- Jars do not need to be sterilized before using. They only need to be washed in hot soapy water for pressure canning or when water bath canned for 10 minutes or longer.
- Don’t wait for the canner to cool before opening it. Instead, wait for the pressure to reach 0 lbs. or for the pressure lock to drop. Then, remove the weight and let the canner rest 10 minutes. Lastly, carefully remove the lid and then the jars to allow them to cool away from drafts.
- Pint jars of chicken or rabbit without bones should be processed 75 minutes not 70 minutes.
- Weighted gauge canners use 10 lbs. pressure for altitudes of 0-1000 feet not 15 lbs.
- A 2-inch headspace may be too much for jars to seal properly. Pressure canned foods should have a 1” headspace with a few exceptions which will be noted in canning books.
- Quart jars of corn process for 85 minutes and not 80 minutes.
- Cooked sausage should be canned with liquid for proper heat penetration.
- When processing applesauce in a pressure canner, the processing times are 8 minutes for pints and 10 minutes for quarts, not 15 and 20 minutes. Those are processing times for a boiling water bath canner.
Make sure you have a copy of the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving, So Easy to Preserve, or a USDA canning handbook in your personal library to double check all of her instructions.
A short chart for dehydration is included. Unfortunately, it does not include any dehydration temperatures or recommendations to stop browning in fruit. There are more instructions in the section on vegetables but look for a good book on dehydrating. There are several available.
Back to canning. The author recommends canning cheese but also refers the reader to current USDA guidelines. The USDA does not currently recommend canning dairy products and that means cheese, too. Modern commercial cheeses are not acidic enough to consider canning them safely in a water bath canner. For the same reason, it is not safe to wax cheese for shelf storage. If you want to use her recipes that call for cheese, use canned cheese or freeze dried cheese.
Many of the ingredients in the recipes are dried and must be specially ordered or prepared. They include:
- Eggs. See my article “Powdered Eggs” for more information on them. The comments I would make are found there.
- Dried vegetables. Some can be dehydrated at home or they can be purchased.
- Milk. The milk she is using in her recipes is instant milk from the grocery store. Be sure not use non-instant because the volume equivalents are different. (1-1/3 cups/quart for instant vs. 2/3 or 3/4 cup/quart for non-instant)
- Sour cream powder
- Powdered vanilla
The author does give some good equipment recommendation. Her vacuum sealer is very important in her recipes so it is, to her, a “must have” and is first on the list. Make note that the Sport solar oven she mentions is now the Solavore Sport, which is not being produced at this time, and the website for the Eco Wonder Oven is incorrect.
Use this book if you want pre-measured meals for everyday use (you may be too busy, if that’s the case!), camping meals, meals for kids to cook when you can’t, or gifts. For most recipes (other than home canning and some dry soups), though, I don’t think taking the time to assemble 6, 8, 12, or 16 meals at a time is worth the expense of time and storage space.
I read through all the recipes and this is what I found:
- Most recipes serve more than 4 people and, predominantly, 8.
- Breakfast foods are definitely short-term storage.
- There is a good variety of soups.
- Powdered sour cream is used in most of the cream soups. You may be able to use evaporated milk and less water for the same results.
- When making the home canned soups, double check ingredient amounts (especially the vegetables) for 8 meals. There isn’t always enough for 8 quarts. Unfortunately, most pressure canners only hold 7 quarts so you will have one left over to process alone or eat right away.
- The recipes have not been thoroughly proof-read.
- p. 61 Chicken Chipotle Soup. Be careful with the black beans. They are only soaked and not partially cooked. They could overfill the jars when the soup is canned.
- There is a good variety of home canned seasoned meats.
- The section on vegetables tells how to can or dehydrate and then use them.
- p. 133 the instructions for Beet Soup are unclear.
- p. 138 there is not enough water for the amount of rice in the ingredient list.
- p. 140 the instructions don’t tell you how much of the seasoning mix to include with each Beefy Rice and Mushroom Mix.
- p. 142 the amounts of almonds and cranberries are incorrect and the instructions are repetitive and confusing.
- p. 145 the number of coconut oil packets in the assembly list is incorrect.
- p. 148 use the instructions to make the seasoning packets and don’t look at the ingredient list. The amounts are too high in that list.
- Powdered eggs are necessary for most of the desserts and half the breakfasts.
I think the last chapter, Chapter 11 “Logistics”, is in the wrong place. I personally think it should be chapter 2 since it tells how to store the meals, stock your pantry, and obtain bulk food.
Would I recommend this book? It’s definitely not for long-term storage. It could add some good foods to your 3-month supply, though. Just be careful for all the recipe errors and consider whether you really want to buy powdered sour cream and eggs. I will use it for the canning recipes (double checking processing times and correcting for headspace recommendations) and a few of the dry mixes. If I had known what it was really like, though, I probably would not have purchased it.
Oh, and by the way, not all the recipes pictured on the cover can be found in the book.