Rhubarb

After taking a canning hiatus last week I decided that I needed to can rhubarb today! We have several different Amish families that we buy produce from but I decided to check the "spinster sisters" that live down the road from us a few miles. I was pleased to see that they did have rhubarb and the asking price was $.50 a pound! The one sister was scrubbing the floor when I got there so she dispatched the idle sister to begin cutting my order. I told her that I wanted enough to can 7 quarts and she brought back 9 pounds.

We washed the stalks and then cut them into 1" slices. For every quart of rhubarb we added 3/4 cup of sugar, I got my 7 quarts with 2 stalks to spare! I mixed the rhubarb and sugar up evenly and let it set for 3 hours. After that I placed the whole mixture in a stock pot and boiled for 30 seconds.


I then spooned the hot rhubarb into warm quart jars and topped off with the accumulated juice from the stock pot. Due to shrinkage we only ended up with 5 quarts, but that's OK as I want to can more this coming week. Then the jars were water bath canned for 15 minutes.

Aren't they pretty?

The health benefits of rhubarb are quite numerous, here is a brief synopsis:

This tart treat has health benefits that will make anyone want to go out and try a few. Health benefits of rhubarb are many, and offer a great amount of nutritional value. Rhubarb in the past was used for fevers and used as a laxative. With the benefit of Vitamin C and fiber, rhubarb offers many other benefits to the consumer. Health benefits of rhubarb are:

1. Can lower cholesterol - With its sweet taste, rhubarb surely is easy to get down. Along with the bonus of tasting good, rhubarb lowers cholesterol. Because of the vitamins and nutrients, this helps reduce the risk of harmful diseases. Rhubarb is a sure thing to take if you are suffering from high cholesterol.

2. Help prevent deep vein thrombosis - Because of the nutrients and vitamins; rhubarb helps prevent deep vein thrombosis. This is a blood clot in your feet that can spread to your lungs if you are not treating it. There are many ways to prevent deep vein thrombosis, but rhubarb is the simplest.

3. Rhubarb stimulates the metabolic rate - this makes it a good for people who want to lose unwanted pounds. The dietary properties are promoted with the usage of fiber and potassium. With the potassium it is said to speed up your metabolism to help you lose weight.

4. Low in carbohydrates - Everyone is trying to find the latest health benefit for fruits and vegetables. The best health benefit of rhubarb is that it is low in carbohydrates. When you have something that is low in carbohydrates, you can feel alright when you accidentally eat more than you intended to.

We did a canning jar inventory and I only have about 30 dozen jars total. :-/ That is really not enough, I've already used almost 1/3 of those and this is only May! I'm keeping my eyes open for auctions where jars are listed so I can bolster my supply. Canning makes me so happy, I love the sight of the filled jars in my cupboard. :-) I love it so much that when my sister was here I dragged her out to the kitchen to admire them, she very dutifully extolled their beauty, lol. :-)