Last night, much to my husband’s extreme excitement,* I decided to make some strawberry rhubarb jam. A few years ago, after a acquiring a larger-than-two-people-could-eat cache of apricots from our CSA, I make apricot jam. It was absolutely delicious but I never seemed to get back to preserving things – E came along and there just wasn’t enough time for me to dedicate to the process. So, the years passed and we just bought jam at the supermarket, and every so often I’d pause while eating my morning toast and think, “Gosh, it tastes so much better from scratch.”

The NYT ran a piece on canning last week and featured a recipe for strawberry rhubarb confiture. I’d read it just before going to the market and the recipe stuck in my brain – almost absentmindedly I grabbed a bunch of rhubarb and an extra pint or two of strawberries while shopping, and there they sat in the fridge until last night. Recognizing that it was all going to go bad if I didn’t do something with it, and quick, I rustled up some mason jars and a stock pot and got to work.

To be frank, I messed up nearly every step. While my husband is a by-the-book recipe follower, I tend to stray. I get a little distracted sometimes (forgot to cut up the strawberries and left them whole while macerating for, um, three hours before I remembered and went back to chop them) and impatient (after staring at the candy thermometer for 40 minutes and asking myself why the temp of the syrup was not going above 150, I finally just took the thermometer out and made my choices and timing based on how the boil and texture looked). When it was time to can the jam things looked a little more watery that I’d have liked, but it tasted good so I threw on the lids, boiled and left them to cool overnight.

The result? Not quite as congealed as true jam but not a syrup either. I think I shall call it “relaxed jam.” And golly, it tastes amazing – basically, like the insides of a strawberry rhubarb pie. I can’t help but think that I could perhaps halve the sugar next time, as it doesn’t need to be so sweet, but I’m not sure whether that would mess with the maceration process.

Regardless, YUM. I can’t wait to make more as the summer progresses, though I might need to do it when A is on business trips, while E and I have the hot house to ourselves. He can, of course, partake in the spoils when he gets home (and the house has cooled down).

;

* Sarcasm in use – making preserves = lots of boiling water. It was rather warm and muggy last night, which meant that the kitchen was warmer than usual. I have the circulatory system of a lizard, so heat does not bother me much, which is quite the opposite of my dear husband.