Making Jello With Rhubarb

Are you about to be inundated with rhubarb? Do you have favorite ways to use it? I try to use as much of our garden produce as I can. I feel that's the good steward thing to do with the abundance, and doing so saves us a lot of cashola on groceries each summer and fall. The usual ways to use rhubarb are in preserves, stewed into a sauce, or in baked goods. Here's another way to use rhubarb, rhubarb jello dessert.

What I like about this

It's a fat-free, relatively low calorie way to use rhubarb. Most rhubarb desserts add a pie crust or other grain, butter, and sugar part to make the rhubarb more palatable as a dessert. While there is sugar added to sweeten the naturally tart rhubarb, turning rhubarb into a gelatin dessert makes this a less fattening option for using our rhubarb.

It's super easy to make

Using minimal ingredients, unflavored gelatin and homemade rhubarb sauce (even the kind where you add a pinch of baking soda and reduce the sugar), rhubarb jello comes together with about 5 minutes of hands-on time.

ingredients:

4 teaspoons unflavored gelatin
5-6 tablespoons room temperature water
3 cups of rhubarb sauce, sweetened to taste

As with all scratch-made, natural fruit gelatins, you soften the plain gelatin in a little water while the rhubarb sauce cooks. 

Once the rhubarb sauce is cooked and sweetened, melt the softened gelatin in the microwave and stir into the cooked rhubarb sauce. 

Puree the rhubarb in a pitcher blender and pour into a large bowl, individual bowls or custard cups. Chill overnight. 

The end result is a layered gelatin, with a foamy/fluffy layer on top and firm jello beneath. If desired, servings can be topped with whipped topping. 

My family LOVES this, and it disappears quickly.