Putting it by {part 2}: Rhubarb

So what did I do with the rhubarb? I boiled it down (along with some water and sugar) into Rhubarb Syrup, for rhubarb soda of course. Over the last year or so, Jared and I have gotten really into drinking sparkling water. He claims that he drinks less beer when we have sparkling water around, but I just like it. I don't know, it just seems more exciting than plain water. We don't drink soda or juice so it's nice to have a little variety.

In any case, after the last time we were at my parents house, I remembered that when I was a kid, they used to have these soda siphons for making seltzer. I was pretty sure that they weren't using them anymore, but still had them (kind of like that ice cream maker, I'm noticing a trend here. I wonder what else they have stashed away...). So my mom sent them to me. We managed to explode one of them (I still have no idea how that happened), but we've been using the other one regularly.

And now we can have all kinds of homemade sodas. So far we've tried ginger ale and rhubarb soda. And we're going to do raspberry soon too. All you have to do is make a syrup and add it to sparkling water. I find the word "syrup" to be a little misleading since it's not very syrupy, it's really more liquidy, but it's so sweet that a little bit really does go a long way. I don't like things too sweet so I would say that I probably put 1 teaspoon of the rhubarb syrup in with a whole glass of sparkling water. The raspberry harvest has already begun for the year and I'm hoping to make some raspberry syrup for soda too. And maybe Molly's mint syrup too (I never did get around to making that last year). I'm wondering what other kinds of sodas I can make this summer...

I put the syrup into half-pint jars (I quadrupled the recipe- for six cups of rhubarb) and processed them along with the strawberry jam. This way, I can enjoy rhubarb syrup year round (since rhubarb is really hard to find out of season) and give them as gifts.

Be sure to check out homesteading to see what I did with that spinach...

I know that summer has arrived and that this header needs a little refreshing. I'm working on it. Along with a summer manifesto. It's high time.