"Saving the Seasons: How to Can, Freeze or Dry Almost Anything," by Pittsburgher Susanna Meyer and her mother, hits home for those of us eating according to the whims of a new vegetable garden or bullied by a community-supported agriculture (CSA) subscription that spews too much of a good thing.

With our city's brief growing season we know something about savoring a July peach in February. And we wouldn't mind being convinced to save money on super-tasty, healthful food.

The book, just out by the Mennonite Herald Press ($24.99), offers a triple whammy of food preserving options, with two generations of personal experience behind it. The press, located in Scottdale, draws on a long tradition of the Mennonite community's skill at preserving food and eating thriftily.

Authors are Ms. Meyer and her mother, Mary Clemens Meyer, of Fresno, Ohio.

Susanna grew up Mennonite, spending summers on her parents' farm. Her parents live there full-time now, supplying certified organic produce and pastured meat for a farm market and a 35-member CSA. "Mennonites," Susanna says, "tend to feel a responsibility for taking care of the health of their community and the environment around them."

Fittingly she is director of agricultural production for Grow Pittsburgh, a non-profit organization that produces food and helps people create new gardens in city schools and other urban settings. One of her efforts is the greenhouse and garden at the Frick Art & Historical Center, which supply The Cafe at the Frick and city restaurants.

Mary Meyer is a long-time editor of the book's publisher, Herald Press.

The book includes recipes contributed by Mennonite families from Ohio to Ontario, many of them farmers. That should not connote bland farm food, sans seasoning and creativity.

Besides canning, freezing and dehydrating recipes for many fruits and vegetables, the book features hipster treats such as kimchi, fruit/yogurt "leathers," herbed vinegars, herb salt, jerky and baby food. A zany bit of practicality perfected by somebody's grandmother is the book's canned Apple Cake in a Jar, to be sent to a loved one far away.

Recipes with chefly flair come from Legume chef/owner Trevett Hooper, who prides himself on house-made vinegar and serves home-preserved and pickled foods all winter at the restaurant.

Chef Hooper got to know Susanna Meyer in years of buying her Grow Pittsburgh vegetables for the restaurant. He was dipping samples from a sparkling quart jar of his Hungarian Hot Pepper Jelly -- the recipe is featured in the book -- at a recent book-signing party at Farmers@Firehouse market.

Another Chef Hooper temptation in the book is Dried Sun Gold Tomato Mayonnaise with pimenton chili pepper, suggested for sliced turkey or pork sandwiches. I did not have drying equipment, so I roasted yellow cherry tomatoes from my garden at 225 degrees on a rack for about five hours, which nicely concentrated flavor and sweetness. If you don't feel like whisking up a sweat making homemade mayo, you could stir Dijon mustard, finely chopped oven-dried or dehydrator-dried yellow cherry tomatoes and pimenton chili powder into Hellmann's mayonnaise.

The square book is lightweight but sturdy and opens flat. Its detailed "Canning Trouble-Shooting Chart" is useful, perhaps especially so if you are just getting started canning. Double-page, step-by-step photo guides should do much to dispel the mystique of canning and dehydrating equipment. The photography is artful but not overly styled, with an honesty that may tempt you to invest in a canning kettle and a dehydrator, too. A practical feature is the heavily plasticized cover, impervious to canning slops and drips.

Susanna Meyer lives in a wooded corner of Garfield with her husband, Neil Stauffer, who is general manager of Penn's Corner Farm Alliance, a sustainable and largely organic farmers' cooperative serving Western Pennsylvania restaurants and CSA subscribers. The couple has a dog, a cat and two chickens. Their vegetable garden is planted in the front yard to fool the deer.

Apple Cake in Jar

Wouldn't it be fun to send someone a quart of cake -- especially a far-away loved one. Happy news: you don't have to submit these jars to boiling water processing. They emerge from the oven sterile and you put the sterilized lids on right away to keep them that way. The contributor, Amy Gingerich of Hudson, Ohio, says her grandmother used to send these to her at college.

• 2/3 cup shortening
• 2 2/3 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 3 cups flour
• 2/3 cup water
• 3 cups grated apples
• 2/3 cup raisins
• 2/3 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Cream shortening and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs and beat well. In separate bowl, stir together dry ingredients. Add dry ingredients alternately with water and mix until smooth. Fold in apples, raisins and nuts.

Spray wide-mouth canning jars well with non-stick spray. (Be sure to use wide-mouth jars.) Fill no more than half full with batter, being careful to keep rims clean. Place jars on baking sheet in preheated 325-degree oven. Bake for 45 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Meanwhile, sterilize lids and metal rings in boiling water.

As soon as cake is done, remove jars from oven, one at a time. Wipe rim of jar; put on lid and ring. Jars will seal as cakes cool. Cakes will keep for up to a year. Makes 7 to 9 pint jars or 3 to 5 quart jars.

-- "Saving the Seasons, How to Can, Freeze or Dry Almost Anything" by Susanna Meyer and Mary Clemens Meyer (Herald, 2010, $24.99)

Herb Salt

• 1 part dried, crushed herbs to 3 parts coarse salt.

Try lavender, basil, mint, rosemary, tarragon or thyme. A few grains of dry rice can be added to the salt to absorb moisture.

Store in a cool, dark place in a container with a tight-fitting lid. The salt will develop increased flavor over several weeks.

Try a rosemary/ lavender mixture on baked salmon. Thyme salt is a good rub for chicken.

-- "Saving the Seasons, How to Can, Freeze or Dry Almost Anything" by Susanna Meyer and Mary Clemens Meyer (Herald, 2010, $24.99)

Trevett Hooper's Dried Sun Gold Tomato Mayonnaise

Nice with cold sliced turkey or pork sandwiches, Chef Hooper suggests.

If you are not accustomed to making mayonnaise this time-consuming hand-whisked way, any favorite food-processor method would work well. Tasty and colorful in a pinch: stir the flavorings -- mustard, tomatoes, chili powder -- into Hellmann's mayonnaise.

• 1/2 cup loosely packed dried Sun Gold tomatoes (If you don't have a dehydrator spread 1 1/2 cups Sun Golds, halved, lightly salted and tossed in a teaspoon of oil, on a rack over a baking sheet and bake at 225 degrees for 4 or 5 hours, to concentrate flavor and sweetness.)
• 1 egg yolk
• 4 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 cup vegetable oil (I used canola)
• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon pimenton (Spanish smoked chili powder), optional

Cover tomatoes with boiling water and allow to sit until they soften a bit. (Soaking is not necessary if you used the oven-dried alternate.) In a bowl whisk egg yolk, vinegar, mustard and sea salt. Very gradually whisk in vegetable oil in a slow, steady thin stream. Drain tomatoes and chop with a knife until they form a paste. Add tomato mixture to the mayonnaise. Add pimenton to taste.

-- "Saving the Seasons, How to Can, Freeze or Dry Almost Anything" by Susanna Meyer and Mary Clemens Meyer (Herald, 2010, $24.99)

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