More rumination on rhubarb
Rhubarb is certainly easy to grow, but harvest and preparation is even easier. You walk out to a growing clump, grasp a thick stalk firmly in both hands, and pull. That’s it! Sometimes you catch yourself and sometimes you land on your butt, but either way, you rapidly build a pile of delicious tart/sweet goodness. Then a bit of sharp knife action leaves the base and an elephant-ear-sized leaf on the compost pile. Add a fast swipe under the hose bib and you can take your prize straight to the kitchen to be turned into magic.
Everyone is familiar with rhubarb pie, be it strawberry-rhubarb, rhubarb custard, or “straight up” with a solid, lattice, or crumb crust on top. ‘A la mode is better still. The fruit (vegetable?) can be baked into a marvelous quick bread, a fabulous cake, upside down or otherwise, a scrumptious crisp, a cobbler, or a Brown Betty. It can be cooked into sauce, served warm over ice cream, as a shortcake with fluffy whipped cream, or just a saucer full with a smattering of cinnamon. Fresh rhubarb is remarkably versatile and good things come even when you don’t wait. As children, in the days before concern about “double dipping,” we dipped stalks into a custard cup full of sugar and crunched it down raw. Pucker up, baby!
To save rhubarb for later, you can forget canning, blanching, water baths, vacuum packing, drying, or any other means we commonly use to preserve our summer harvests for the long winter months. If you chop rhubarb into pieces and toss it in a plastic bag in the freezer, it is ”shovel ready” next February and the same marvelous recipes can be enjoyed without even remembering to thaw.
For something fun and a little different, rhubarb marmalade will make tea and toast an extra-special breakfast treat or it can be processed into fancy jars for Christmas gifts to friends and family unlucky enough not to have their own rhubarb patch. Six half-pint jars will come out of the following recipe:
In a heavy pot, combine 6 cups of chopped rhubarb, 6 cups of sugar, and 2 oranges (peels and all are first grated, ground, or run through a blender). Simmer until thick over medium heat with regular stirring. Pour into scalded jars and seal with paraffin or put up in canning jars following the instructions for sealing in a hot water bath.
Make extra — you’ll want some for yourself.
Editor’s note: This weekly column is written by members of the Presque Isle Farmers’ Market. For more information or to join, contact their secretary/treasurer Steve Miller of Westmanland at 896-5860 or via e-mail at beetree@xpressamerica.net.
