This small batch of strawberry rhubarb jam is the perfect embodiment of spring. Sweet, tart, and quick to make, you’re certain to be glad you spent the time.
It’s conventional wisdom will tell you that strawberries and rhubarb go well together. Just about everyone I know has a fond memory of a pie or cobbler made with a smattering of sugar and those two ingredients. It should come as no surprise to you that these natural partners make an exceptionally good jam.
I’ve made this recipe a couple of times recently, though as I looked for photos to use in this post, I realized that I didn’t manage to capture the process. This happens sometimes. When I’m awash in fruit and canning more for myself than for the blog (I know it might shock you, but this does happen), I will head into the kitchen and let myself slip into the meditation that cooking something familiar can offer. The camera doesn’t get much play when that happens.
Outside of the stack of sealed jars now cooling their heels in my coat closet, the only evidence that I even made this jam is the corner of that yellow bowl off on the right edge of this picture. It’s full of macerated berries and chopped rhubarb. The new copper preserving pan I got obviously stole the show that day. (I’ve made a few batches in the copper pan so far and I’m really enjoying it. I plan on writing up my thoughts in a more organized fashion sometime soon, so keep your eyes peeled for that.)
Now, on to that recipe!
Small Batch Strawberry Rhubarb Jam
Ingredients
- 2 cups of chopped rhubarb, approximately 1 1/2 pounds of stalks
- 4 cups of chopped strawberries, approximately one quart
- 3 cups sugar
- 3 tablespoons powdered fruit pectin
- 1 lemon zested and juiced
Instructions
- Prepare a boiling water bath and four half pint jars. Wash lids and rings in warm, soapy water.
- Place the chopped rhubarb and strawberries in a large, nonreactive pot.
- Whisk the sugar and pectin powder together. Add it to the fruit and stir to combine. Let it sit for 15 to 20 minutes, until the sugar begins to dissolve.
- Place the pot on the stove over high heat and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium high.
- Add the lemon juice and zest to the pot and let it cook at a low boil for approximately 20 minutes. As the jam cooks, use the back of a wooden spoon or a potato masher to help break down any large pieces of fruit.
- Once the jam has reduced by about 1/3, looks thick, and very shiny, it is done. Double check for set using your favorite method. When you've determined it is done, remove the pot from the heat.
- Funnel the jam into your prepared jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Wipe the rims, apply the lids and rings, and process in a boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes.
- When the time is up, turn off the heat and remove the lid from the pot. Let the jars stand in the cooling water for five minutes. Then remove the jars from the hot water, placing them on a folded kitchen towel or wooden board to protect them from heat shock.
- Let the jars cool undisturbed until they are no longer warm to the touch. Remove the rings and check that the seals are good. Sealed jars are shelf stable for up to 18 months. Any unsealed jars should be refrigerated and used promptly.
My favorite chef’s knife that I love to work with is a Wustof, but it’s not my overall favorite knife. My grandmother, my greatest canning influence, gave me an old paring knife far older than I am.
I honestly do not have a favorite because I do not know enough about knives! I guess I should go ahead and learn since I love to cook so much 🙂
I htee to say it, but I own only cheap knives so have no favorites. I woudl love some good quality knives! Thanks for the chance to win.
My favorite (or at least most used) knife is a little serrated knife that I use for just about everything. Thanks for the chance to win!
We definitely could use a new set – the kids seem to think that they are good at cutting wood, crayons, rocks… um, yeah.
I do have a favorite butcher knife we picked up at Ikea 10 years ago or so. No matter what the we or the kids have used it for, it still holds up. Thanks for the opportunity !
Honrstly, I don’t really have a good set of knives and I’m looking to make chopping veggies more fun!
Desparate for a good knife or two! and have our own rhubarb patch just for jams and pie!
I love my mom’s old butcher’s knife. She used it for everything and then passed it to me. Amazing what that thing could do.
My favorite knife is one that has been through the dishwasher so many times the rubber handle cover is splitting! I am still looking for the perfect bread knife though!
My favorite knife used to be a MAC knife – Japanese. We now keep all our nice kitchen knives very sharp and they are always a pleasure to use,no matter the brand.
What is much more fascinating is my 84 year old father’s favorite knife. He had a serrated bread knife with a wooden handle in the 1970’s. When the handle fell apart, he continued to use the knife without any handle. It doesn’t matter what knife is available, he still uses that handle free knife for everything.
My 25 lbs of strawberries are waiting for me to prep them with my super crummy knife. Please let me win!
My favorite knife is a Cutco small chef’s knife. In high school I sold cutco for a few weeks – long enough to pay off the sample set you have to buy to start. At the time, the prices of the knives seemed like a rip-off to me, so I gave away most of the pieces of the set to family and friends who had bought knives from me. I kept this one, and now its lasted me 15 years, and I’d love to have another cutco to keep it company. Thanks for the chance to win!
I have a single Cutco knife that is pink! I absolutely adore it and when my budget allows I would love to own an entire set of these!
I have a little paring knife — no brand name that I can see. I bought in the first year I was married – 1978 – and still prefer it over ‘fancier’ ones bought over the years.
My favorite knife is my grandmother’s. Sometimes I think I just make up excuses to cook at her house so I can use it. It is always razor sharp (she says she sharpens it on the bottom of a ceramic cup!) and my grandfather brought it to her from Japan.
An ancient Sabatier knife that my dad bought in 1970s still cuts like it did when he first bought it.
I seem to reach for my 7″ Victorinox with a plastic handle time and again. It just fits comfortably in my hand and the length is perfect. Funny, I remember a chef telling me to start with a longer chef knife to get comfortable with it prior to using a shorter knife. He said if I start shorter, I’d never end up using the longer knife. He was right!
does anyone remember the old Case knives? they were not stainless and always discolored and rusted but they kept a good edge. I use a cutco knife everyday and I’m a chef. mary in Cincinnati
I don’t have a favorite knife. I hope to get one of those 6 inch knives, though, one of these days!
For most chopping I like my 8 inch chef’s knife, but my go to utility knife (blush) is a serrated steak knife that I think dates back to a set my parents got with gasoline purchases (back when gas stations gave away glassware, green stamps and only charged 39 cents a gallon for premium!)
I love my 6 inch chef’s utility knife–I use it more than any other knife in my kitchen!
My favorite is a Wustof paring knife that is actually still sharp (my other knives are not). Had my first canning project of the season yesterday (strawberry jam).
I don’t know brand names for knives, but my favorite knives are the ones that can be sharpened, and the handles don’t loosen or come apart. I bet leaving my knives in the wash water too long might be the reason for some handles coming apart, so plastic handles might become my fav knives, as long as they can be sharpened ^_^
I love my 10-inch Forschner Chef’s Knife. It was part of our tool kit when I started culinary school and I’ve been in love ever since. It’s cheap, the handle is plastic, and the blade is stamped, but the result is marvelous. It is definitely the work horse of my kitchen.
I have to say my favorite knife is from my parents. They had actually recieved my knives as a set for a wedding present and never used them until I needed a set for my new apartment.
I am so in love with the knives that I use them daily along with the sharpener, they have no idea what they missed out on.
I don’t know that i have found my perfect knife yet. but i do recall the days when i learned to use a proper chef’s knife. i could never understand how i managed to cut a large amount of anything before i got that knife!
sadly I don’t have a favorite knife 🙁
I don’t have one. I’ve always had craptasticly cheap knives. I dated a chef once and he ruined me for cheap knives but I could never afford the good stuff.
I use a couple of Rada paring knives that I really like. Also a Chicago chef’s knife that I inherited from my dad.
My favorite knives are ones I bought in 2005 for like $3 each at target. They’re getting dull, and Target doesn’t carry them anymore. 🙁
I’d love to get some new knives, but the set I want is more than I want to spend! lol Thanks for the chance to win!
My favorite knife is my Pampered Chef forged steel Santoku. I love it. But I have Cutco steak knives that are wonderful.
I have to admit that if were to win this giveaway, I’d give them to either my mother or my SIL since they really don’t have good knives and I would like to stop having to travel with mine in order to cook in their kitchens.
My absolute favorite is an 8″ Henckels chef’s knife. It’s big and sturdy and comfortable, and I use it for almost everything. It was a wedding present to myself 11 years ago, and worth every cent.
What a great giveaway! We use Global knives, which are my favorite, although I know they aren’t necessarily the best. I’m a field biologist in Alaska who lives in my tent on a wildlife refuge most of the year so when I come home to a kitchen I am ecstatic to use any knife for cutting that isn’t a swiss army pocket knife!
My favorite knife is the wooden handled one my dad gave me when I moved away for college. It’s got to be older than me!
Only one? Please?!?!? Well my favorite folding is the Whirlwind, swing assist, non-serrated. It’ll take a wicked sharp edge, it’s almost too big for a pocket, it’s comfortable to hold… For a sheith knife, it’s a cheep Winchester (like 12 on Amazon) with a rose wood handle. It also takes a nice sharp edge, and is great for processing everything from fish, to veggies, to poultry (well except for parting them up, it’s a bit small for that) in the field. For further dicing, it’s a bit small, but I think I could hold it all day and hardly notice it…
My favorite knife in the kitchen is not pretty or really all that sharp. But it reminds me of my dad, because it’s the kind he always uses in his kitchen. Even though I use it rarely, it’s comforting to see in the drawer, and makes me feel at home, even though I now live on the opposite coast as my dad and his kitchen.
I still love my Wusthof knives! My favorite is the serrated bread knife… I can use it for so many things! 🙂
Thanks for the giveaway!
My favorite knife is one that was demo’d to me at Walmart 13 years ago. You know the kind of demo that saws a soda can in half, cuts into a brick and then beautifully slices a tomato? Well I ended up with 3 of those knives for $10 that way.I kept one, gave one to my mom, and the other to a friend. All three of us are still using our knives to this day. I have a knifeblock full of knives but almost always reach for this one first. Those cutco knives look wonderful though. I sure could use a knife that will mince garlic better than my wonder knife. The serrations on it are too deep and the blade too narrow and straight to do the rocking motion to mince garlic and herbs.
I love my knives. I have almost all Wuesthoff for my good knives. I have earned them over the years, gradually replacing my old wood handled Chicago cutlery knives (30+ years old). I have a drawer for them. My most recent addition was the 10″ serrated bread knife…it is a dream. My favorite is the bird beak paring knife…works so good on massive piles of potatoes and apples. We live in a town with no cooking stores, so over the years when on vacation I seek them out and where some may come back with a souvenir, I return with a knife or shish kabob set (LL BEAN in Maine) or popover pan (Acadia National Park) or wok paddle (Chinatown in Vancouver) or cast iron dutch oven (I think that was some place in Utah, St David’s?) or a teapot for camping (REI in Seattle) and on and on.
I have one small Cutco knife – which I love! It’d be awesome to have those larger ones, too, for different cutting tasks.
my favorite has to be Miracle Blade. My step dad got me those for when I move out (I was 12 at the time) off a 2am paid programming slot. They are fairly decent. In 6 years, I’ve only had to sharpen 1 knife once! And that’s cause my cousin starting scraping it on a bamboo board for “fun”.
I won a set of knives in the ’80’s playing bingo at a company picnic. I have no idea of the brand, but they continue to be my ‘go to’ knives, especially the serrated bread knife and the meat slicer. They really do what they are supposed to do.
My knives are so bad, I don’t have a favorite. These would surely be my favorite if I won.
My favorite knife is either my Chicago cutlery Chef’s knife or the serrated bread knife. Neither stays sharp long and I’d love these!
I have only one knife, a Henkel that gets a ton of use in my kitchen. While I do love it I didn’t know all the rules of knife care when I first got it so it does need some sharpening soon.
I have one paring knife (don’t know the brand). It belonged to my mother-in-law. She loved it. I love it.
My favorite knife is a wood-handled knife passed on to me by my grandmother. It’s nothing fancy, but the metal seems to be of extremely high quality. She’s had it since my mother was small, it’s rarely ever been sharpened, and it will cut through just about anything as well as the day it was made. My husband borrowed it out of my knife drawer to do some man work once, though, so it took some damage. I had a few words for him when I found out! LOL.
I was gifted a Cutco paring knife one year for Christmas, and I’d have to say that’s definitely my second-favorite knife. I know several people with complete sets and they are really just a dream to work with.
I bought an entire set of Cutco Knives, etc. right after I got married. My first “big” purchase w/o my Husband’s permission:) They were sold door to door then. The only remaining piece I have is the long handled fork which I use to this day for frying bacon. My Son refers to it as my “70’s” fork:) He owns an entire set of Shun knives but those are too rich for my blood!!
Hubby bought for me a Laguiole knife- love it since it cuts everything like butter! Sadly, it’s got legs & walks (he uses it for general home & house construction), so I can never find it when I need it!
I don’t have a favorite knife, when I moved my favorite one (a lovely bread knife that also doubled as a fruit slicer) went MIA. I’ve been missing it ever since :).