Diving into our freezer a few weeks ago, I discovered that we had many, many bags of chopped, homegrown rhubarb on the shelves. While I enjoy rhubarb jam, and rhubarb pies, it's just not something I really go through en masse. Our 5 (5!) plants out back are still churning it out faster than we can deal with it (they do have beautiful flowers, though), but I had to make a dent in our freezer stash first. Since I had some lovely local strawberries from the farmer's market and some excellent pineapple (in pouches and cans) from Dole to use as well, I started looking around to see if there was anything that could use up these "bits and pieces" from the kitchen.
It so happened that I managed to find a recipe that used all three of these ingredients, and not much else! Fellow Canadian blog Rock Recipes had a recipe for Heavenly Rhubarb Jam, which sounded suspiciously familiar - that was when I realized that the same preserve was in a cookbook from Newfoundland, where Barry lives. The only major difference between the two recipes I saw was that my cookbook used both 1. Pineapple Jell-O (they make pineapple Jell-O?) and honey, while Barry's was vegan and more streamlined.
While I knew the flavours of the produce would marry together and shine as one, I still wanted to add my own little "touch". Not growing nasturtiums this year (my signature ingredient for the past few), I decided on the next best thing - vanilla. The beans I used to make my vanilla sugar were relatively floral in flavour and scent, and added a touch of "tropical" flavour to the jam as it cooked down.
That said, I almost forgot to add sugar at all! I was canning several items that day, and this rhubarb mixture had cooked for about 45 minutes before I had a chance to taste it. You definitely need sugar. It doesn't make it super-sweet, but it definitely enhances the berry and pineapple notes.
Heavenly Jam
Makes ~6 cups, 48 (2 tbsp) servings
Adapted from Rock Recipes
600g (about 6 cups) diced rhubarb
600g (about 4 cups) diced pineapple (fresh or canned)
498g (about 3 cups) chopped strawberries
1 ½ cups vanilla sugar
- Combine the rhubarb, pineapple,strawberries and sugar all together in a 2 quart pot and simmer gently over low heat for about an hour and a half, stirring occasionally.
- Process 10 minutes in a waterbath or freeze.
- Amount Per Serving
- Calories: 41.2
- Total Fat: 0.1 g
- Cholesterol: 0.0 mg
- Sodium: 0.6 mg
- Total Carbs: 10.2 g
- Dietary Fiber: 0.6 g
- Protein: 0.3 g
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