We hunkered down at home for the long weekend. Herds of wet, hungry kids passing through our kitchen every 30 minutes, at least 429 weeds pulled, 4 rows of beet seeds sown, 8 sunscreen applications, clothes drying on the line in 7 hot minutes flat, 3 slivers removed, 2 pairs of lost shoes, 16 sprinkler-trampoline routines watched, 1 grown up tantrum over the jacked up irrigation system.

Our mower and weed whacker were broken and, once fixed, it took me 4 hours to tame the jungle. I paused often to wipe the green buggy yard debris film from my sunglasses. My forearms are still vibrating. My skin smells like sunshine. I cannot wait for school to be out for the summer.

I went for a bike ride with my girls. And, long story short: we drove 2 miles from our house to a trailhead, biked for a few hours. Returned to the truck and the key wasn’t in that little zippered pocket on Ruby’s camelbak….so we biked home (man my kids dug deep and rallied to make that trek). Once home, the spare key wasn’t where it ought to be and I remembered it was in my purse in the truck at the trailhead. So I dropped the kids at friends’ houses, packed a coat hangar in my pack and biked back to the trailhead. I biked about a mile up the trail to see if the lost key was where we’d stopped for a snack. Nope.

Back to the truck.

Like a lock picking ninja I got the truck open in no time. Hi-Ya! Spare key was in my purse. I was on my way home.

Wait…what’s that clicking noise? It sound like something dangling from the passenger door? Oh. It’s the truck key that was in the lock that whole damn time.

At least the keychain tells me my garden kicks ass?

We harvested the last of our rhubarb and while pie is tough to beat, I wanted to preserve the bright tang to enjoy over those grey winter months. We made rhubarb syrup. (Also! I updated my rhubarb pie recipe on the original post from 2010 (ah two year-old Margot!). It’s better than before: tarter and larger.)

I don’t usually make fruit syrup because my family members are traditionalists when it comes to french toast and pancakes. Maple all the way. But a liquidy, barely sweetened rhubarb syrup just might be delightful in a glass of soda water. And maybe a bit of gin…

There are many rhubarb syrup recipes out there and they all call for heaps of sugar. I chose to experiment with minimal sugar, adding bits at a time to achieve a good, just-sweet balance to the puckery fruit. It was super easy to make and the color knocked my socks off! I thought perhaps the green and pink stalks would make a greige syrup but it turned out to be a lovely, watermelony pink.

We like it so much that we ditched our plans to make jam and just made more syrup.

ginger!

The recipe already.

ginger rhubarb syrup / makes 4 pints

Ingredients:
3 lbs chopped rhubarb
fistful ginger, peeled and finely grated
5.5 cups water
1.5 cups sugar
1/2 cup lemon juice

1. Bring rhubarb, ginger and water to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered for about 20 minutes.
2. Strain liquid. Use a fine mesh strainer and pour rhubarb mixture over bowl. A trick I learned from Marisa at Food In Jars: don’t push pulp against mesh as it will result in a cloudy syrup. I let it sit for about 30 seconds and then tossed the pulp up and over itself to release last bits of juice. Discard pulp.
3. Put the juice back in the pot with the sugar and lemon juice and heat over medium heat until sugar is dissolved. This syrup is pretty tart. Taste and add more sugar if you’d like.

At this point you can simply pour into jars and store in the fridge. Or you can process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes. I filled one glass bottle for immediate use and canned the rest.

rhubarb spritzer

Simply pour a bit of the syrup over ice cubes and top with soda water. Experiment with the ratio you like, ours was about 1 part syrup, 5 parts soda water. For the grown ups: add another 1 part gin. Garnish with a big chunk of fresh mint. I think the mint would be delicious pulverized in there too.

I’ll leave you with the song Ruby has had stuck in her head for a week and that she generously gave to me:

Pink Fluffy Unicorns Dancing on Rainbows!
Pink Fluffy Unicorns Dancing in my Head!

That’s it. Repeat no less than 47 times an hour and you too will be graced with these lyrics knocking around your brain.

{Updated to add: This is actually a song!!! Ha! Not the “dancing in my head” part (but I *totally* get how that evolved for Ruby) but the other line can be heard over and over and OVER here.}

PS Free Worldwide Shipping at DIG + CO. this week!