Come the Revolution

Archive for May, 2008

This week’s project for me is to make myself instant oatmeal packets. I have been a packet-buyer for years and have decided I will never again buy packets of oatmeal.

How To: make instant oatmeal in your own kitchen.

Thanks to Trent Hamm for writing this and [taste] testing the results.

Last July I snagged the last farmer’s market rhubarb and froze it, with the intention of eventually doing… something with it. And yesterday, finally, I did.

strawberry rhubarb preserves
about 1lb rhubarb, cut into 1 inch pieces
about 1lb strawberries (in this case, frozen from Trader Joes)
6 1/2 cups sugar

Heat rhubarb in 1/4 cup water until it starts to soften. Add strawberries and cook until the mixture starts to break apart. Add sugar and stir until it dissolves. Bring to a rapid boil over high heat and boil hard for one minute. Remove from heat, skim foam and spoon preserves into hot, sterile jars. Process in a water-bath canner for 10 minutes.

Because there’s no added pectin in this recipe and the mixture doesn’t cook for very long, these preserves are soupier than jam (which I’ll try my hand at in a few weeks). It came out really well — tart, but sweet enough to taste like dessert. Yummy on toast, and I’m looking forward to stirring it into yogurt and putting it on vanilla ice cream. I used the rhubarb just in time, too, since this season’s crop appeared at the farmer’s market today!

Photo by I love my pit.