My friend Carol is a great cook. She knows I’m a rhubarb addict. Combine the two and it’s been a summer full of tasty treats from her garden.

A while back we started talking about putting up preserves so that we’d have all this good stuff year round. The more we talked about it the more we started nosing around the actual work involved. About a month ago we actually set a date to do the canning. This past week we both rounded up all of the tools and supplies needed to get the job done.

Monday morning I took off 3 hours early from work. Time to get some writing done – and to get the fresh fruit needed to go with the rhubarb and make the jams. I wandered up and down the aisles of a deserted Cub foods shopping for my produce and sugar. I couldn’t have been happier.

Some fat guy with a spoon

Tuesday morning I left work promptly at 0700 and headed over to Carol’s mother’s apartment. We’d included her in the festivities as she’d been an ace canner in her years as a farm mom/wife. Like all smart farmers, she elected to snooze in the easy chair while we did the canning. All the benefits, none of the work. I admire that kind of solution.

I’d given Carol all of the jars and one of the canning pots last week so that she could run them through the dishwasher. I had a load of sugar, oranges, lemons, and strawberries in my car. Carol’s sister, Judy, was there as our consultant and driving force. Between the three of us it was a great team effort. It’s fun to work with people who don’t mind putting the work in to make things happen.

The cooks

It took a while to churn out all of the chopped fruit, skinned oranges, squeezed lemons, and assorted other tasks, but when all was said and done we wound up with a couple of dozen jars of strawberry-rhubarb and orange-rhubarb jam. The mess was incredible, the smells intense, and the joy of a home produced preserve immeasurable. We even stepped out on the wild side and went “off recipe” for one of the batches. I think it was a good idea – the tast was awesome.

Rhubarb orange jam

I hope the pictures will give you a small idea of what we were up to with our madness.

Strawberry rhubarb

Last night at work we sampled our wares. The results were wonderful. The rhubarb-orange in particular was tart and pleasing. Sadly, we’ve missed the deadline for entering it in the state fair. Seriously! This was world class due to a modification we made to the recipe. That’s our secret until we win at the fair next year. We already have plans to put up a batch in time to enter it in county fairs and the state fair. Rave reviews around the room. Here are some pictures of our finished product.

Strawberry-rhubarb on top, orange-rhubarb on the bottom.

I’ve got to head out to Fleet Farm to get some more supplies. I learned how to use several tools doing this project that Judy had brought with her. It’s clear that I’ll be doing this again and will need to incorporate them into my repertoire.

Now the question is, “What in the name of sugar do I do with all of these preserves?”