Rhubarb-Orange Marmalade

So this marmalade came into being because we have a LOT of rhubarb. Last year, at the beginning of spring, my husband and I split our plant into 8 smaller plants. We gave away 4 of them, and kept 4. Those divisions were fairly large and now I have 4 huge plants.

My rhubarb is green. It's a Victoria-type that's very sweet, very tender and tends to have thinner stalks that get very long. The bottoms are red, but the lengths are a celery green.

Those oranges are fairly large oranges.

There are a lot of recipes for orange-rhubarb marmalade on the internet. They call for various cooking methods and varying amounts of the ingredients. Sometimes they have nuts or spices in them. Our recipe is fairly simple, but it's really tasty. My daughter did the cooking. I did the harvesting and gave her the recipe.

Rhubarb-Orange Marmalade- makes 3 pints of marmalade

You will need:

7 cups of  rhubarb  (12-15 stalks)
2 large navel oranges
6 cups of sugar
2 cups of water

Wash your fruits. Anything that you grow yourself and you know what gets on it, you can decide how best to wash it. For oranges from the store, wash with a bit of soap and water. For store bought rhubarb, dunk it in 1:4 vinegar water mix, scrub lightly, then rinse.

Zest the oranges into a bowl using a paring knife, microplane or vegetable peeler. After that, cut the orange into quarters, and cut off the peel and pith. Then cut the quarters in smaller pieces and put them in the bowl.

Cut the rhubarb into half inch pieces. This might require cutting them in half length-wise then chopping them into smaller pieces.

Put the rhubarb, oranges, sugar and water into a heavy bottomed 5 quart pan and bring to a boil. Turn it down and let it simmer for about an hour stirring frequently. It will thicken. Check it by lifting the spoon, when it sheets off the spoon, it's ready.

While you're doing that, prepare your jars. We used a combination of 4 oz jars and those gorgeous Ball Canning Elite Jelly Jars that are in the photo.

Fill the jars leaving a 1/4 inch headroom, remove bubbles, wipe rims and process jars (hot water method) for 10 minutes.

This makes a lovely, tart and sweet marmalade that is delicious on pancakes according to my daughter who is eating some just that way right this moment. Me? It's hard not eating it just by the spoonful, but I'm looking forward to trying it on chocolate ice cream.

No-bake cultured cream parfait AND TG's rhubarb lemonade recipe

I know what we consider hot weather here is what a lot of you consider a nice day. But it's 70 today and that's a bit warmer than is comfortable. Baking on the 4th of July is NOT going to happen. But no bake desserts in jars? That's easy, cute and transports well.

So starting from the left- those are no-bake parfaits. There are a lot more berries than it appears and it's two of my favorites- strawberries and blueberries.

For 4 pint jars you will need:

To culture the cream:
1 pint of heavy cream
2 Tbsps plain yogurt- make sure it's just milk and cultures
A warm day- or a warm water bath

Put the yogurt and cream in a 1 qt jar, screw on the lid,  shake once, then set in a warm place overnight. After about 12 hours the cream will be very thick when you tilt the jar. Put it in the fridge to chill.

Making the parfait:

Graham cracker crumble:
Melt 1/2 cup butter in the microwave if you absolutely can not stand the idea of turning on the stove (like me, seriously, 70 degrees is really warm for Anchorage)
Mix with 1 cup graham cracker crumbs (about 1 sleeve, crushed fine)

Rinse the strawberries and blueberries. I got a quart of strawberries and a pint of blueberries, there was some leftover for about a minute. Slice the strawberries.Put berries in the fridge until the cream is whipped.

Mix the chilled cream with 1/4 cup super fine sugar, 1 tsp vanilla and if you have it, 1 tsp Grand Marnier.
Whip the cream! With cultured creams, I've found my cream whipper does not work well, even if they are really cold. Whipping by hand with a whisk works great and an electric mixer would probably work too. I prefer the whisk because it's quiet and quick.

Put a few spoonfuls of the crumb mixture in the bottom of each of your jars, then put in a 1/2 inch layer of strawberries, add cream, add blueberries, add cream, continue alternating until it's nearly full, then top with more graham cracker. A nice addition is to fancy slice a strawberry so you can fan it out on top before putting the lid on.

Culturing the cream adds a delicious tangy flavor, and makes for a smooth, silk like cream. The crumbs and berries provide texture and flavor. My daughter likes to whip in some cocoa powder as well for hers because everything is better with chocolate.

Speaking of my daughter, she made lemonade and measured this time. For those of you living where you can consistently get good lemons, LUCKY!! We use lemon juice because it's more consistent.

Yes, I have jar love. I also have some of the newest products from Ball Canning to show off.

Using a 1 pint jar because  Ball® jars are wonderful. They have measuring lines which makes it all so easy-
Put in 2 Tbsp of sugar
Pour in lemon juice to the first line,
Fill with cold water to the top line. Lid, shake well.

Now in your big 24 oz  Ball® Mason Jar mug (you have one right? They are huge and nicely made!)
Slice up a 4 inch piece of rhubarb, add whatever other fruits sound good. She did! Then lots of ice. Pour the lemonade over the fruit and ice, and use a Sip and Straw lid and a wide mouth jar band.
The nice thing about doing it this way is that she can customize the drinks a bit. Like her dad likes it just like that, but she likes it more sour so she makes hers with more lemon, and a touch more sugar.

Another new product, like the Mason Drinking Jars, and the Sip and Straw Lid that's just really neat is the infuser.

This works with wide mouth jars- like the big  Ball® Mason Drinking Jar (they do have a regular sized version of the drinking jar as well) or the tall Ball jars you use for things like asparagus. I love this. The Sip and Straw lids are NICE. They have reusable thick straws, perfect for smoothies and shakes. The infuser lid though, that's perfect for people like me that try to stay hydrated but like a little flavor. Shown above, it has rhubarb, blueberries and strawberries in it, but soon it will be raspberries from my yard. Yum. It has a drinking hole on top, and has a gasket for a tight seal. The basket is big enough for a nice amount of goodies.

The jars, the mugs, the drink lids are all available on their site- and it's been re-designed to be more mobile friendly.

The lids, jars and mugs were provided to me at no cost. No other compensation was given, and my love for  Ball® Canning products is real.

Jelly Recipe Page

Spoonflower is getting ready to have their annual free swatch day on August 18th. Every year, they do this to help raise money for Heifer.org, they will mail you a swatch of fabric, but if you'd like to make a donation, the money goes the charity. 

The swatch I'm getting this year is this design, and after I get the swatch and approve it, the fabric will be for sale at Spoonflower.

Since I decided I really liked the layout, I made a printable recipe page using it. I hope you enjoy this.

Click on the image for the larger version. The dots are spaced approximately 1/3 of an inch apart for the lines. 

Lots more printable jelly things and recipes pages on Don't Eat the Paste.

Jelly and Jam Printable Labels

Printable Recipe Pages

Dea's Rhubarb Lemonade

The Turnip Girl, who is also the artist known as Dea, at least in her family, gave me permission to share her rhubarb-lemonade recipe. She's 15 now, and has been collecting recipes and making up recipes to fill her recipe box for years. Some of them the rest of the family is fairly skeptical about. She can say as much as she likes that peanut butter tacos with lots of hot sauce are awesome. I'm not eating them.
Her rhubarb lemonade is really good though. Sometimes I do have to add extra sugar. She loves the sour.
8x10 300 dpi jpgs. Blank and with her recipe. Click on the images for the full sized version. Recipe by the Turnip Girl, illustrations by me.

Rhubarb labels and coloring sheet

After posting the strawberry labels, a friend said " Now if only you had an adorable rhubarb printable for my rhubarb compotes ;D" - long, skinny things are harder to make cute than strawberries. Strawberries have a natural amount of cute going for them! But I told her I would try.

Same thing as the strawberry labels. These are 300 dpi, the circles will fit a 2 inch punch. I like using Avery Sticker Project Paper (Amazon.com affiliate link) for labels because I can do custom layouts. For people who prefer other methods, you can download the labels individually and use them in your word processing or graphics software to make your own label sets. Each label is 300 dpi, the rectangles should work in 3.33 inch tall x 4 inch wide 6 labels per sheet templates. They are 3 inches tall by 3.66 inches wide at 300 dpi. Click on the images for the full sized versions.

Here's my layout. Also 300 dpi, click on the image for the full sized version.

And a coloring page/embroidery pattern for people who really like rhubarb. My daughter loves the stuff, and recommends using it in lemonade.  100 dpi, click on the image for the full sized version.

Check out #canvolution on Twitter.

Strawberry-Rhubarb coloring page

I'm working on a set of rhubarb labels for a friend, and put this together while I was working on it. Hope you like it! The idea of rhubarb "crossbones" with the cute strawberry to make a strawberry-rhubarb pie design just seems so cute. The coloring page can be used for coloring, embroidery, etc. It's 100 dpi PNG format- non-transparent. Click on the image for the full sized version.