Friday Surprise: Unplanned Roasted Rhubarb Jam

I do this a lot. I go to the store for something specific, like say cilantro and a jalapeño for my chicken marinade, and end up purchasing unexpected fruits and veggies that I can't resist.

The culprits

Today it was long stalks of rhubarb.

I have a shedload of other things to do, but they were made to wait as I gave in to my preserving addiction and a little experimentation.

I really want to make the rhubarb jam recently posted by Grow It Can It Cook It (leader of the Cook It 2012 project I've been participating in this year with pasta, bread, and butter so far — cheese post is coming soon!), but that's a multiple day project and I only brought home 1 lb of rhubarb...so instead I'm going with this one.

Plus since the rhubarb is roasted, I can multitask by writing this blog post as it cooks. Ah, the perfection of procrastination in effect.

So here we go — easy, fast and sweet — rhubarb jam you can make in about 30 minutes flat. Yup, you heard me right: 30 minutes flat.

After trimming off the tough ends & leaves off your stalks

roughly chop the rhubarb

and place in a 9 x 13 glass baking dish.

Add 1/2 cup sugar (yup, just 1/2 a cup)

stir to coat pieces in sugar, and place in preheated oven at 400 degrees.

Here's the rhubarb after 20 minutes. This didn't look fully cooked to me, but it breaks apart easily when you stir it and looks similar to photo below.

This photo is actually after I put it back in the oven for another 10 minutes to really cook down and bring out the flavor.

The first taste made my toes curl it was so good. So I poured it into a warm pint jar,

and stood back to admire the fastest, easiest jam I've ever made.

It tastes magnificent too.

I took it out into the better light for a little photo shoot,

but it's hard to get a good jam head-shot!

If you are a rhubarb-lover, this is the jam for you. It's fresh and not-too-sweet tasting, exploding with pure unadulterated rhubarb flavor.


Also, did I mention it is the easiest jam ever? Yes, OK — then let me just add that it also only requires 1 dish and 2-3 utensils (spoon, knife, funnel and/or measuring cup). I think that is a record for jam.


I guess I just added one more thing to my to-do list: go back to store and get more rhubarb.