Rainy Sunday Rhubarb Canning

Its a rainy afternoon in Seattle.

Mr. Venture and I are just getting over a cold, the dog was sick Friday night, and I'm being L-A-Z-Y with Devin reading on my couch. Normally this would all add up to tea time, but since it's Spring, we made strawberry rhubarb compote instead!

Yesterday, while hunting for a motorcycle jacket that is a blog post all on it's own, we wandered into an Indian / East African grocery store. Between the 5 different types of cumin, wondering what to do with raw green almonds, and hunting through the bin of broken tamarind pods, I found a bunch of organic strawberries and Devin spotted some rhubarb for $1.99/lb.

Devin washed and rinsed all the canning jars / lids / rims, and I got straight to cleaning and slicing the strawberries.

I threw them into my tall stainless spaghetti pot.  

Devin filled the even larger canning boiler. Its like a big lobster pot with a removable wire rack inside that holds the jars steady and evenly spaced while you are bathing them. It covers two burners on my stove so we filled it 3/4ths of the way up, put the lid on it, and cranked both burners to high while we turned our attention to the rhubarb. 

After rinsing it and chopping off the ends, we sliced the rhubarb lengthwise and then diced it like carrots, adding to the steel pot as we went. I like mine sweet, so I added about 1 cup of sugar for every 4 cups of material. I didn't have any cornstarch, so I followed the guide on my jar of pectin. It came to about 3 Tbsps of pectin. 

Stirred till rolling boil, poured into prepped jars that had been drying the the warm oven, lidded, rimmed, and set carefully into the bath. I should really get a jar lifter - but since I don't have one, I used my silicone tongs to pull the jar up just enough to clear the water level, then slide under the jar with the oven mitt to guide it to the table. 

Devin helped:

We waited a bit for the jars to pop and then tightened the rims. Of course, there was slightly more filling than could be jarred - so we sampled the remaining filling over some strawberry ice cream - YUM!

Finished results: 

New Lunch Box Lurvs

I heart the Sistema Klip It Lunch Cube. While nothing is unsexier than "lunch cube," it's a totally functional lunch holder and deserves love despite the horrible name. It holds enough to be a real meal, the different sized compartments rock my love for more fruits than veggies, and (very importannt) it's easy to clean.

Traditional bento boxes are pretty awesome - but I hate losing those little dividers down the garbage disposal!! I don't like putting my hand down that thing to fish them out...gives me the shivers.

So this is my lunch -

Sammich, veggie mac, applesauce, and up in the right top corner are dried cranberries and apricots. Under the dried fruit there'll be some cashews and almonds. Yay Lunch!

Not just lunch really...it can hold enough food to be breakfast, lunch, and a 2pm snack if you pack it right.

It folds up to look like this - 

It's an easy shape to store in the fridge and then grab in the morning before running out the door. The divider that covers the sandwich area locks in with the divider on the bottom so nothing gets messed up even when you toss it into the passenger seat while trying to find your ID badge.

I'm pretty happy.

Spring has sprung!

This weekend I :

• went to Moisture Fest  ( yay yodeling cowgirl! )
• took the climbing 101 class at Stone Gardens ( Holy rope-burn Batman!) 
• prepped my patio garden for Spring

The before was just too horrible, and I forgot to take a picture, so you only get afters...

It doesn't look like much now - but I'll try to put more updates as everything slowly wakes up again. 

last year the hops went so crazy they took over the whole balcony and I had to cut them out bit by bit from the plastic webbing we use to keep the dog from jumping between the bars.

So far this year it looks like the honeywart is trying to take everything over. It grew wild from last year's seed fall. In fact, everything has been from last year. Hopefully I can resist the urge to buy more plants...I think I have an addiction...

These are my indoor plants - 

The Jade was my first houseplant in Seattle. Its weathered many an absence of water without much complaint.

The little creeper I found on the floor at Home Depot. It had broken off a larger spider plant. It refuses to die.

The large plant on the left is some kind of lily...but the flowers are a deep maroon / brown color. 

Try searching "brown flower," or "brown lily" on Google - it's all resources on plant care. So I have no idea what plant this is exactly. It seems happy enough in a deep pot with lots of sun. Its pretty, so I don't myind my nameless stranger. I call her Chocolate. 

Today’s new thing starts with the statement:

    “I love my husband.”

My husband, the guitar playing, laundry rockin', ace cook, cannot drive in downtown. He just can’t. When he does, it's like free scream therapy or the scary part of the roller coaster as you slowly go up cringing as you listen to the sinister click-click of the chain locking you in position. We just keep going around the same block, nerves fraying, knuckles white, face contorted in fear.

 Part of the problem is that we drive a boat. I don’t know many cars longer than our Subaru Outback. We need to get something shorter – but haven’t gotten around to it yet. Normally it’s not a problem, but when you’re downtown, and it’s all mini/fiat/motorcycle spots, I really start to wish we’d gone car shopping shortly after moving to the city.

 The other part of the problem is that my husband is too nice. He lets people get in front of him, waits while they take the spot that just opened up, refuses to stop and wait for another car to back out because there’s a car a block and a half behind him. It's just terrible. 

We did it though, and now we have a resolution that, when we know we're headed downtown - I drive. I'm aggressive, I have good peripheral vision, and I know exactly how big the car is. 

This scary adventure was all for the greater good though - Ferris Wheel pics!!