I love rhubarb — for so many reasons. First, it is sour and I am a sour-junky. Second, it is cheap and abundant (now) and freezes beautifully for months. Third, and most important for this blog, it gives jam the perfect consistency.

Rhubarb added to any fruit (strawberry, raspberry, blueberry — I’m sure there are others) makes jam that is sweet-sour and adds a slightly fibrous consistency to the gel. So, instead of fruit surrounded by gel, you get fruit interspersed with a smooth rhubarb paste (see the close-up photo below). The jam is thick, but not overly gelatinous. Last weekend, I made raspberry rhubarb. I think it’s my favorite jam yet — even better than my beloved fig jam. Here’s the method I used:
1) Thaw one bag (~ 2c) frozen berries.
2) Chop four stalks rhubarb, and cook with juice from thawed berries (~ 3/4c) for 5 min.
3) Add thawed berries, 1 tsp lime juice, and 1 tsp calcium water (from the Pomona’s pectin box), bring to 185 degrees for 2 mins
4) Mix 1.5 tbln Pomona’s Pecting with 1c sugar, add slowly while stirring
5) Add 1c more sugar slowly while stirring
6) Bring to 185 degrees
7) Can and boil in hot water bath for 5 mins.

Because I am a sour-junky I use a higher rhubarb to berry ratio then many recipes call for, but you can, of course, adjust this to your taste.

So, I know that this blog is about preserves, but I recently started making my own yogurt and want to share some lessons learned from two successful batches and two failures. I use the same half-pint jars as for jam. Here’s my process:

1) Heat the milk to 190 degrees and keep it there for 5 mins. Do not boil. After one of my failures, I talked to the yogurt-maker at my farmers’ market, and he told me that I likely hadn’t kept the milk at a high enough temperature for long enough.

2) Put pot into bowl of cold water, and let milk come down to 110 degrees.

3) Add some plain yogurt. Stir very well. Make sure the yogurt has active cultures. Stonyfield says it does, but their yogurt didn’t work for me. The yogurt from my farmers’ market has been my most successful starter-yogurt.

4) Pour into half-pint jars and cover with lids and rings. Old lids work fine since the yogurt doesn’t need to be vacuum-sealed. Just be sure to keep your old lids separated from your new lids!

5) Put into a pre-heated oven (170 degrees). You need to keep the yogurt warm for a few hours. A gas oven with a pilot light works, or (if you have electric like me) just raise the temp to the lowest allowed every hour or so and turn the oven off. I like to leave it in for about 7 hours, which gets me a thicker yogurt. I use “reduced-fat” milk and it comes out plenty creamy for me (and I’d drink half-and-half if it didn’t kill me).

6) Refrigerate for a few hours, and, of course, add a tablespoon of jam.

My first failure occurred when I put the jars in a closet covered with an electric blanket. The jars accidentally fell over and the yogurt separated. For reasons I’m not clear on, you must make sure the yogurt stays upright while it is fermenting. Does anyone out there know why?

A note on the cost: Plain yogurt costs $0.89 at my Whole Foods for 6 oz. One quart organic milk costs $3.50 and makes 32 oz. of yogurt, saving me $1.25 (and 5 plastic containers).

The first spring BBQ of the year was the venue for the second raspberry jam Half Pint taste test. A dozen guests tasted 6 different kinds of raspberry jams, and the results are…

The winners:
1) Homemade pectin with 2:3 sugar:fruit ratio
2) Liquid pectin with 1:1 sugar:fruit ratio

The losers:
3) Pomona pectin with 1:3 sugar:fruit ratio (not sweet enough, disliked consistency)
4) Pomona pectin with no sugar (used a little erythritol) (not sweet enough, disliked consistency)
5) powdered pectin with 3:2 sugar:fruit ratio (too sweet and consistency too grainy)
6) fancy storebought brand (too sweet, tasted like apples)

So, I’m happy to know that my homemade pectin was the winner, but it’s a lot of work and the liquid pectin was equally well-liked. Sadly, despite my high hopes, the Pomona pectin was unanimously panned. I’m going to keep experimenting with it, though, because I like the fact that it comes in bulk and allows me to choose my sugar amounts. Clearly, a minimum of 2 parts sugar to 3 parts fruit is necessary for most people’s tastes. I’m also going to try and use less calcium water, since I think this makes the consistency a little too thick and somewhat chalky.