In the canner, Blubarb jam

Summertime means enjoying some of the freshest food you can get your hands on, especially if you live in the Midwest. Weekend farmer's markets, CSAs and the stuff from your own backyard gives you new opportunities to appreciate how delicious fresh food really is and you start wondering how you can capture that summer taste when it's mid-February, it's dark at 4:30 p.m., you haven't seen the sun in DAYS and your only cardio workout consists of shoveling the snow from your driveway.

Over July 4th weekend, I was in my hometown of Lewisburg, WV. We went to the local farmer's market on Saturday morning and scored some GORGEOUS blueberries. I've had a recipe I've been sitting on for years, hoping to finally make it and grabbing some of these beauties was just the inspiration I needed to get started.

When I got my CSA this week, it was a sign from the gods. I had more blueberries and some fresh rhubarb. FATE! I had everything I needed to make this blubarb jam. The recipe comes from my current favorite canning book "The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving".

Ingredients:
3-1/2 cups chopped fresh or frozen rhubarb
1/2 cup water
2-1/4 cups coarsely chopped fresh or frozen blueberries
1 T lemon juice
1 box dry fruit pectin
5-1/2 cups granulated sugar

Place rhubarb and water in a very large stainless steel or enamel saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat, cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring often.

Add blueberries, lemon juice and pectin; mix well. Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring constantly. Add sugar, return a full boil and boil hard for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Ladle into hot jars and process for 10 minutes.

Makes 6 cups (I may have used a few more blueberries and ended up being able to get 6 8-oz. jelly jars and 2 half-pint jars out of this batch). Darn, one of the jars didn't seal correctly. Guess that's the one I keep :)