Rebecca Writes - Rebecca Writes

Last week youngest daughter decided that she wanted to learn how to make jam, so we spent Friday afternoon making a couple of batches of Strawberry Rhubarb Jam, which is the favorite jam of almost everyone in this family.

Next up, I’m going to start a batch of Bumbleberry Jam, another yummy jam that uses rhubarb. It’s good for using up bits of overripe summer fruit and for giving you a reason to rummage through the marked down section of your supermarket produce department.

Here’s how you make it.

Wash fresh rhubarb and cut enough of it into 1-inch pieces to make 2 cups of cut-up rhubarb.
Put the rhubarb pieces into a saucepan with 2 cups sugar. Heat slowly, stirring constantly, until mixture boils. Boil for 10 whole minutes of fruit-stirring misery. (This is where having a couple of stand-by stirrers will come in handy.)
Put the mixture into a covered 2 quart container the fridge.
Keep cooking and adding fresh fruit as you get it. You can use strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, plums, grapes, cherries, peaches, oranges, apricots, or apples—whatever fruit you like. Prepare each batch of additional fruit in the same way as the rhubarb—cut it up (berries and cherries can be used whole), measure two cups, add two cups sugar, bring to a boil and boil for 10 minutes.
Then add the previously cooked fruit to the newly prepared fruit in the saucepan and heat the whole mixture to boiling. Pour the whole shebang back in the covered container and store the fridge again.
Repeat this process until you’ve added 3 kinds (or six cups) of fruit to make a total of eight cups of jam.
Seal the hot jam in hot sterile jars. (I’m a little food-safe compulsive, so I process this one in a boiling water bath for 5 minutes because something about having it sitting in the fridge for a couple of weeks makes me nervous. I’m pretty the boiling water bath isn’t necessary, however.)

No matter what fruit I use, this jam turns out very tasty and deliciously fruity.