Rhubarb Rosemary Jelly from Gourmet

I saw this recipe recently over at Gourmet.com and after looking it over it seemed like something doable during a study break. I had time and I had the ingredients on hand, so I figured why not? Recently, I had switched into my alter ego, Anxiety Man, able to jump to the worst conclusion in a single bound, and as such needed to unwind a bit.

Making jelly during finals, I find, is surprisingly fulfilling. To begin, it's always a pleasant feeling having a weighty knife in one's hand. There exists a sense of power and raw dominance that comes with it and the pleasure of slicing through the body and juices of all that rhubarb and rosemary. That bit of petit destruction gives a nice sense of relief and works as an irrefutably phenomenal stress reliever.

Honestly, my jam and jelly skills are what I would call... minimal. My luck with making them... disastrous at best. Mainly because all my past experience have had unfortunate mishaps which end with me somehow needing to be bandaged up.

Take the time I reached into a pot of scalding water for a jar lid, forgetting in fact, that the water was in indeed scalding. I didn't quite realize it somehow until I was a forearm deep. Fun trip to first aid there. Apparently I have a slow pain response to boiling water.

Then there was the time the jar exploded in my hand during the cooling process. A rousing game of "Is that blood or tomato sauce?" was enjoyed by all present.

Still, this recipe seemed so nonchalant. Relaxed. Easy. Basically it was chop shit up and boil it in a pot. Afterwards, pass it through a sieve and then jar it. It's a fridge jelly to be sure due to the use of gelatin instead of pectin, but I doubt it will last long anyways. (Update: It's gone now.)

The tickle pink, almost startlingly neon blush is stunning in itself. Really, I'm quite proud of myself just looking at it. The color is only surpassed by the flavor. Sweet, tart, and quite savory and while the jam is pink, the taste is a foresty green. While tasty by the spoonful (it's like rosemary candy for God's sake), I look forward to trying this with a bit of chicken or turkey assuming it lasts that long.

The recipe, as I have said, is easy; ridiculously so. So now I am jellied and happy, a bit less jittery, and ready to go back to the grindstone.

Toodles.