Memorial Day weekend was jam packed with activity. Literally! We cut down the rhubarb in the garden to make way for other plants and found that he measly little plant I had plopped in the dirt last year gave us a lot of fruit! Since I had such a big pile of rhubarb and – thanks to the gift of some old canning supplies from a friend – a package of Sure-Jell, I got the sudden inspiration to make rhubarb jam.
I Googled around for a recipe and came across this one from Kraft, makers of Sure Jell. Making the jam is actually quite easy. Canning it is easy, too. It’s just all so damned time consuming! And I swear that at one point we had every pot and pan in the kitchen in use.
It was a lot of work for 8 jars of jam, but it was actually kinda fun. And this jam is going to taste so good this winter when we’re baking bread and fattening ourselves up to stay warm.
And you know what else? It really gave me an appreciation for home canning. It was only 80 years ago that most homes relied on this form of food preservation to survive. We’ve got it so easy, with our store-bought, high fructose corn syruped jams!
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