Rhubarb jam

Hello Friends,
Well, a productive morning here at 'Hagstones'. One of the things I love about this time of year is my daily perusal of the veggie garden, looking at what's ready to pick: Lettuce 'Lettony' & 'Salad bowl red', rocket 'Wildfire' , basil & a handful of new baby carrots today!

The rhubarb had re-grown triffid-like since I last cropped it. Already blanched & frozen some for the freezer for crumble & sponge pudding later in the year, so decided to make jam. Recipes for rhubarb jam can sometimes get a bit lah-di-dah fancypants with additions of strawberries, stem ginger, etc. Mine is very simple. Here's how:

Rhubarb jam
2lbs rhubarb
2lbs sugar
Juice of 1 lemon
2 tbsp water

Chop rhubarb into 1 cm pieces (no need to get the ruler out, that's 1cm-ish). Put in preserving pan with the 2 tbsp water. Simmer, covered, until rhubarb is soft. Add the lemon juice & sugar. Stir to dissolve. Crank up the heat & boil rapidly until setting point is reached. (Do the time-honoured 'wrinkle' or 'flake' tests, or use a jam thermometer). Skim the usual jammy scum off the top, stir well & pour into warmed sterilized jars.  

This is good on buttered crumpets, or to fill jammy buns or sponge cakes. If you have a fossilized tin of custard powder still lurking at the back of your pantry since Mrs Windsor's silver jubilee, you could add some to a bit of buttercream for a rhubarb & custard cake. Nom nom! 

Albert Whiskers is already turning out to be a character. Today he let us know in no uncertain terms that a single course at breakfast is completely unacceptable & later caused me to turn the air blue when I stubbed my toe hard in my attempts to prevent him getting inside the oven, which I'd just lit. Then he managed to escape by casually strolling through the front door, having conned me into believing he was asleep!

Thankfully, I managed to re-capture him fairly quickly by making a killer lunge when he stopped to investigate a particularly riveting corner of privet hedge. I have a ton of jobs to do in the veggie garden this week, so must make sure I leave post-its on all the doors & windows to remind me to keep them closed. Great to have a cat around the house again, but he really mustn't go out until he's had his innoculations & completed his 'settling in' period.
Back soon,
C x