Judging a cookbook...

... by what I can find in the Index.

This last summer I canned tomato sauce for the first time. I did not realize how good my sauce was until I had some store bought sauce and it was not very good.  So I have arranged with some friends to use part of their garden to grow tomatoes and will help them with the care of the garden. The recipe I used for the sauce is the recipe I always use and all I had to add was tablespoon of bottled lemon juice to each jar to make sure it was acidic enough to can. I am gathering all my supplies right now for tomato sauce, except for the tomatoes.  Last year the crop was not until July or August.  I don't think I can wait until that time to get my hand messy in canning.

Last December I was looking for a canning cookbook and wanted one that I could can dill carrots.  Honestly I judged all books by what was in the Index.  I was looking for a dill picked carrots recipe.  There were several books that I thought looked good, but had sugar in the recipe and I also didn't want sugar in it.  So the book I ended up getting was:

As I am writing this blog I looked more closely at the recipe and it has sugar in it... so SAD.  I think I will have to modify the recipe in the book.  Now that I know what I want to can I need to do some research about the topic of canning.  I took a tip to the library and found all the following books:

I have been looked through several of the books for a picked carrot recipe and have not found it.  I have found some great information about the basics of canning.  Over the next month I will be reading through these and I diffidently have to try my hand and picking some carrots and maybe some cucumbers.  

If anyone has a good recipe for pickling something please share with me.