Adventures in Jam

The second item in this week's box to cause me a mild heart attack was the Rhubarb. The only things I knew about Rhubarb was that it was red, it looked like celery, was technically a veggie, but tasted like a fruit. I also knew that Strawberries were its natural mate. The Husband and I stared at the bunch for a bit when the box first came in and tossed around ideas:

• The Husband: Pie?
• Me: I don't want to make a pie this week. That takes too long.
• The Husband: What did Becky say?
• Me: She said she doesn't really like rhubarb.
• The Husband: That's not very helpful, is it?
• Me: Nope. To The Google Machine?
• The Husband: To The Google Machine.

So I did a Search:

Having never in my entire life made JAM before I decided that this was CLEARLY the best idea. The Husband and I were going to make the jam, jar the Jam and can the Jam. How hard could it be (famous last words, I know)?

After a little more research we found a recipe we felt we could handle, and that didn't require that weird food science product called "pectin." The Husband brought home 6 beautiful Jamming Jars the next day and we set to work.  (Recipe credit goes to Marisa McClellan from Food in Jars  and can be found HERE on Food52.com)

We started with about a pound and a half of Rhubarb which I diced into 1/2 inch slices

Meanwhile, The Husband hulled an equal amount of Strawberries.

I then cut them into 1/2 inch pieces and added them to the bowl with the Rhubarb.

This strawberry was ridiculously large. Bring on the Genetically Modified Fruit!

 I then decided that that bowl was obviously too small, so we sized up and added 2 cups of sugar.  The original recipe called for a cup and a half, but we increased the sugar to accommodate the extra pound of fruit.

It was a this point that The Husband and I realized it was 9:30 at night and the fruit needed to sit for an hour before we could do anything with it. The recipe we were following suggested that we could leave the fruit in the fridge for up to 48 hours so that's what we did.

 The next day I started up again. The recipe had warned me that the mixture could bubble up a bit so I thought the three inch sides of my mom's old skillet would be an advantage.

We could have used more inches. Every stir of the spatula brought cries from The Husband about how the darn pot was boiling over and getting all over the stove. I don't know what he expected me to do about it.

After the above picture we stopped worrying about getting the shot and more about not burning the house down. Still we managed to get the Jam down to an acceptable consistency and fill two pint jars full with the sticky molten hot lava substance without causing serious injury.

I severely underestimated the difficulty that comes with canning, by the way. The Husband and I made an effort to follow the manufacturer's instructions on THIS PDF but without all the "fancy" canning equipment like a Jar Lifter, a Funnel or a "magnetic lid lifter" (whatever that is). Instead we used the old standby tongs to lift extraordinarily hot pieces of glass and metal out of boiling water. This of course becomes a million times harder after the jars go back into the boiling water filled with jam and you now have to extract them. We are lucky we didn't need to take a trip to the emergency room especially since The Husband and I are both of the "If I know it's hot I should obviously touch it with my bare hands to make sure" club.

We got two full jars of Jam and a little bit extra out of the batch.

THE VERDICT:

The Jam was pretty darn good. Rhubarb has a very sour flavor that is distinctly NOT lemony. It really balanced out the high sugar content nicely (like I know what I'm talking about, right?). Next time I probably wouldn't use as much sugar as I did. This Jam seemed more appropriate for topping pancakes with then spreading on toast. All in all, it wasn't a hard process considering it wasn't a task I had ever attempted before. The most difficult part was trying to figure out how exactly I was going to clean up this:

As for if I'll ever try my hand at canning again? Probably. Although next time I'm gonna go at it with the appropriate tools; it seems less deadly.