Rhubarb Grapefruit Marmalade

Gardening season has begun.  Last week, I planted peas, snow peas and fava beans.  This weekend I will try to get to the garden to put in lettuce, spinach and other greens.  The greens that were sown in my cold frame in Feb are sprouting and I'm crossing my fingers that the broccoli seeds I transplanted there will take.  This all means it's time to take stock of what is in the freezer and make plans to use it all up.

There is a nice blog called Food in Jars that chronicles the world of canning.  A couple of weeks ago, this recipe was featured from another Blog called laundry etc.  It's for Rhubarb Grapefruit Marmalade and since I have rhubarb in the freezer and grapefruit in the fridge, this was a good candidate to make.  Sean kept making faces since he doesn't like rhubarb but he agreed to try a taste.

I won't retype the recipe since it's at the link above but basically you take chopped rhubarb and pour copious amounts of sugar over it.  Put some crushed cardamon pods in cheesecloth and push into the mixture. I didn't have enough pods so I sprinkled some ground cardamon over the mess.  Let sit overnight.  Take 3 grapefruits and zest the skin.  Cut in half and squeeze out juice.  Take grapefruit shells and put in cheesecloth, add to juice and zest.  Simmer for 2 hours.  Squeeze out juice from cheesecloth.  Then combine juice, zest and rhubarb mixture and boil until candy thermometer reaches 220.  Ladle into jars and process.

I've never made marmalade so I hope it comes out well.

Rhubarb steeping in sugar

Grapefruit peels

Boiling peels and zest

Cooked peels

Grapefruit juice

Rhubarb the next day

Cooking the whole mixture

Marmalade!