Strawberry and Rhubarb Chia Jam
Paula Doebrich • May 28, 2020
I love early summer, when produce starts coming back to the markets after a long winter. My favorite combination ever is strawberries and rhubarb. It reminds me of being a kid and helping my mm in the kitchen when she was making jam for the winter. It was so much fun to prepare the fruits, cook them, and see them turn into a delicious spread. Homemade food just has something special about it!
Rhubarb is very sour, so combining it with a sweet fruit makes it the perfect combination. The tartness gives the jam a twist!
Ingredients
for about 5 medium jars
- 3 cups chopped rhubarb
- 4 cups strawberries
- ½ cup maple syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp lemon zest
- 4 tbsp chia seeds
Directions
- Combine all ingredients expect the chia seeds in a large pot. Bring to a boil and lower the heat. Let simmer for about 3-5 minutes or until the rhubarb and strawberries begin to look mushy.
- Mash the fruit with a potato masher (or fork), You can also use an immersion blender if you like the jam smoother but I prefer to leave in bigger chunks of fruit.
- Add the chia seeds and cook for another 25 minutes.
- In the meantime, boil some water and pour it into the jars to clean them out properly.
- Pour the chia jam into the cleaned jars, making sure there is as little air as possible in each jar (i.e. filling them until they are really full. If any of the jam drips on the edge of the jar, make sure to clean it to avoid the jam going bad.
- Keep in the fridge and consume within 2 weeks for optimal freshness.
Share this
Food is amazing and supports health. However, food alone can't treat a single disease and prevention is also complicated because genetics play a huge role. Using this mantra pushes all responsibility on the consumer and away from the systems that are in place, preventing us from reaching optimal health. It's a sedative that satisfies a few, leaves many where they are now, and takes away responsibility from policy makers to propose a true reform that would actually benefit the public's health. It should never be food/lifestyle OR medicine.
Ask any shirtless guy in the grocery store, and you will find out that seed oils are toxic. Claims are made about seed oils being inflammatory and causing diseases. But many nutrition experts seem to disagree. So what is it about these oils that’s so polarizing?
Making lifestyle changes is incredibly hard. But once you let go of the need to be perfect and realize that doing small changes and slowly moving up to where you want to be is more powerful than going all in and failing, you will truly begin to create a healthier life for yourself.