I'm hooked!
On rhubarb, and it's all your faults! I cannot resist that tart flavour. Thank you very much Peony and fellow St. Bloggers.
I saw some fresh rhubarb at my health food co-op, and the strawberries have been lucious so I just made a batch of strawberry rhubarb jam.
I also made it with honey instead of sugar. It tasted good on the spoon so we'll see how it turns out because I didn't have an exact recipe for it.
Update: Success! My jam gelled. Now I just hope it tastes good. The hot jam I licked off the spoon tasted like rhubarb pie.
So what did I do? I took four cups of strawberries and four cups of rhubarb thinly sliced and mashed them up with a potato masher.I put that in a large pot to boil with 4 tablespoons of lemon juice and 4 teaspoons of calcium water. Calcium water is an ingredient that comes with the pectin I use. When it started to boil I added two cups of honey and 4 teaspoons of Pomona's Universal Pectin. I let it boil until it reached 220 degrees according to my candy thermometer. This is the part that takes patience because it takes forever to reach that degree. I think the reason why I lack a good gel in my jams is because I get tired of waiting for them to jump from like 215 degrees to 220. When it finally reached that temp, I spooned them into 8 oz jelly jars and processed them for like 7 minutes.
It only yeilded like 5 jars though. I actually do not mind small batches because my canner only fits seven jars, but it is a bummer because after all that chopping and boiling, that is all you get. The bright side-now I have rhubarby goodness for a few months!
