RECIPES

Monday 3 October 2022

Rhubarb

 

I love stewed rhubarb – with Weetbix, with icecream, with milk, warm from the pot, in a crumble, you name it and I will love it.

Rhubarb can be tart/sour so it is usually sweetened with sugar before eating.  Cooking it with a piece of scraped ginger root can reduce the need for sugar, but I find another method works even better.  This was told to me by an elderly gentleman many decades ago (he also was a rhubarb fanatic and had umpteen containers of stewed rhubarb in his freezer). 

Slice the rhubarb into pieces as normal, cover with cold water and bring to the boil.  Strain off the water, then barely cover the rhubarb with more cold water.  Bring to the boil and simmer until it reaches your desired level of softness (some like it to remain in pieces, others to let it cook down into a mush).

Stir in sugar to sweeten, if using.




This picture is of our present rhubarb plant.  It got transplanted this year into a trough and a new one was planted beside it (son’s idea – he reckons rhubarb gets lonely and needs to have a companion!).

It is growing well and almost ready to take a harvest from.  I won’t take too much off it this season as I want to give the crown time to recover from being moved, and will take nothing from the new plant.

The gentleman mentioned above used to say if you grew rhubarb and silver beet (Swiss chard) in your garden you would never go hungry.

How true 😊

Margaret.

 

16 comments:

  1. Your Rhubarb is way ahead of ours which is only just waking up.

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  2. Thanks so much for answering my questions about the post offices there...much to learn. And I LOVE rhubarb...alas, I'm alone in my family when it comes to that. I made some jam and for me, the sweet/tart is just the best...hubby insists it's a weed, I just roll my eyes! And yes on Swiss chard...I grew some this year for the first time and it's amazing. At least 3 feet tall and it keeps producing and without bolting like lettuce does. I've not done anything fancy with it (any recipes to share?) I'm just using it in place of lettuce. I don't think I'll ever plant lettuce again...this is so much easier! Have a good day, Mary

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    1. I've actually never used it raw as a salad vegetable (although the rats love it). I usually boil it up like spinach or cabbage :)

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  3. I too love my rhubarb - my technique is to pour boiling water over the prepared stalks, leave for 5 minutes, drain and then cook - that tip was from my Aunt. Orange juice and rind (finely grated) also reduces the need for sugar. Your plant looks wonderfully healthy Margaret!
    Blessings
    Maxine

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  4. Your garden would need a good heavy clay soil type to make those two grow so successfully. Try slicing a banana into your rhubarb - no sugar required. We too eat copiously of rhubarb in England. Greeks have no idea what it is.
    Strawberry & rhubarb or rhubarb & ginger jams, chutney, in ice cream (as in rhubarb ice cream), and all the ways you mention and F even found a recipe for rhubarb baklava which she used bottled rhubarb to make. We had a carefully rationed supply of bottled rhubarb that we took to Greece with us.

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  5. Oh! I tasted it once it was so sour!
    Ginger sounds great with it!
    To never growing hungry! xx

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  6. We enjoy rhubarb very much and enjoy it in different ways. Last year we discovered a rhubarb sauce to have with chicken and we find that quite delicious.

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  7. Wish we could grow rhubarb here. But also a lot of other things. Nice reading about it

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  8. We never has a Rhubarb Pie this spring! -sigh-

    Do you make crisps? Yumm, and I can eat them, no Gluten.

    🍁 🌻 🍂 🌰 🍂 🌻 🍁

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  9. Thanks for the tip. I'll be trying that next Spring for sure because we do like our rhubarb.

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  10. Oh, I too love rhubarb. But it seems if you don't grow it you have to go without, I never see it in the supermarket. Yours looks wonderfully healthy, Margaret.

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  11. I love Rhubarb too, it is the first thing to come up in my garden after the cold of winter and the last thing to die in the autumn so has the longest growing season. I have three prolific plants and am never without. I too love Rhubarb with orange juice and peel, I usually put a bit of ginger in too. I have also made a Rhubarb and polenta cake but not recently.

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  12. Gosh I haven't had rhubarb in literally years. I remember my mother stewing it when I was little and we'd put it on our cereal, it made for a good breakfast.

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  13. I like it too...especially in muffins and pies!

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Thank-you for visiting my blog. I love it when you leave a comment so please feel free to have your say. Have a great day! Margaret xx