The First Sign of Spring
I know Spring has long been officially in season, but until today, I hadn’t canned anything fresh from the ground. One of my colleagues had cut down a whole grocery bag of tender rhubarb shoots for me. I washed them, trimmed the root end and chopped them into ½” pieces. There was just shy of 12 cups (or 3 quarts). In my handy-dandy cast iron pot, I layered each quart with ½ cup sugar, chopped up and squeezed in two cara cara oranges (skin on) and let it sit over night in the fridge with the lid on. This process draws out the natural juices from the rhubarb.
This morning, I baked the whole ensemble for 1 hour at 275F and ran off to Canadian Tire. I got a 20.5 L canner ($22) and a 10.6L canner ($16). The larger one will replace the one I have been using that my Mom gave to me. It’s about as old as I am, and is finally showing signs of wear from hard water and rust from where it makes contact with the canning rack. The smaller pot will be ideal for jam jars (1 cup) so you don’t have to heat such a large surface area of pot.
As always, I had already cleaned the pint jars in the dishwasher but then also boiled the jars, filled with water plus 1″ headroom, with 1 Tbs of vinegar, then soaked the rings & lids to warm them up (but don’t boil them). I placed a wedge of cooked orange in the bottom of 4 jars and then ladled them full of the stewed rhubarb and its juices, leaving ½” of head room (i.e. to the bottom of the lid band). I topped each with an inverted wedge (skin side up), wiped the rims and assembled the lids. They were processed in boiling water, fully covering the jars (plus 3 empty ones filled with water for stability) for 10 minutes once it reached a full boil. When the timer went off, I shut off the heat and let it sit for 5 minutes, then removed the lid and pulled out the jars to cool on a clean towel. As I write this, the lids are letting out their tiny tink sound as they seal down. It makes me feel so happy!
The result is a beautiful pink juice with floating rhubarb pieces, just cooked enough to open the jar and boil down with a similar jar of strawberries and some corn starch to make a delicious pie in the middle of November. I look forward to when I can savour the flavours of spring!
