September 26, 20133 min read

We're thinking outside the pickle jar...

We have moved away from our seasonal and traditional homemade food and beverages for this week's Newsletter, to focus on preserving jars and take a look at the latest food craze to hit Australia from the US. It seems we've gone mad for jars to serve up our favorite dishes and drinks in trendy bars and restaurants. The jar craze has also been embraced by those on the go that want to enjoy healthy, fast meals. There's no limit to what you can serve up in a jar whether it's breakfast, soups, salads, pastas or desserts.

Check out the Pinterest page on Mason Jar Meals for some great food storing and serving ideas. Here's just a sample of recipe ideas. Click to follow their links.

Some handy tips we've picked up for using jars to store and serve salads are;

Put the dressing in first, to sit at the bottom of the jar.
Separate the leafy greens from the salad dressing. Leafy greens should go in last.
Put the more robust veggies in after the dressings, such as carrots and cucumbers. They can sit in the dressing without spoiling.
Fill the jars completely, to minimize the condensation liquid caused by space in the jars.
You can store your salads freshly in salads in jars for several days.

The Age: Good Food Month - Queenie's Food Tours

Home Make It is teaming up with Master Chef contestant, Andrew Prior from Queenie's Food Tours for The Age, Good Food Month, for a special sausage-making lesson and specialist cooking class. To join Andrew on the Queenie's Food Tour with us on the 23rd November, 2013 book Online to secure your place.

Food and Beverage Courses

Our Spring Food and Beverage Courses are now available and run from two convenient locations, Reservoir and Clayton. Visit our website to book directly Online. Our DIY homemade food and beverage courses are fun, hands on and affordable.

The things we must do .......

You may recall earlier this year, our Business Development Manager, Frank Bovezza made the grueling sacrifice to travel to Italy in search of new, innovative and exciting products for our stores. You may also remember what a terrible time he had ;)

Anyway, Frank has kindly agreed to return to Italy in search of more new products for our stores and we look forward to sharing highlights from this trip with you via Facebook, Twitter and our Newsletters. Poor Frank, the things he must do....

Don't forget that if you are into preserving and would like to participate in thePreserving Memories Project that will be exhibited at the Darebin Homemade Food and Wine Festival in May 2014, then please contact Anne Thoday on 0407 887 099.